Whitewashing

Let’s face it; everything is not created equal in the workplace. One of the most common mistakes managers and leaders make is to treat all outcomes the same. This is often called whitewashing because everything is made to look the same on the surface.

When we treat all goals and outcomes the same, we inadvertently divert our energy and attention away from the most critical priorities. In a challenging business environment, this distraction from essential priorities can be a fatal flaw.

Although it can be important to consistently check tasks off your to do list, if your efforts are focused on the easier, but less critical priorities, then you risk leaving the more difficult challenges left undone. This requires us to be brutally honest about what matters most and to make hard choices about goals that we may not succeed at initially.

All of us, especially managers and leaders must distinguish good successes from okay successes in order to instill “top of mind focus” on the most essential priorities. When we do this, we’ll stop whitewashing and the true colors of our goals and objectives will shine through.