7 Focus on Key Result Areas

When every physical and mental resource is focused, one’s power to solve a problem multiplies tremendously.

NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

“Why am I on the payroll?” This is one of the most important questions you can ever ask and answer, over and over again, throughout your career.

As it happens, most people are not sure exactly why they are on the payroll. But if you are not crystal clear about why you are on the payroll and what results you have been hired to accomplish, it is very hard for you to perform at your best, get paid more, and get promoted faster.

In simple terms, you have been hired to get specific results. A wage or a salary is a payment for a specific quality and quantity of work that can be combined with the work of others to create a product or service that customers are willing to pay for.

Your job can be broken down into about five to seven key result areas, seldom more. These represent the results that you absolutely, positively have to get to fulfill your responsibilities and make your maximum contribution to your organization.

A key result area is defined as something for which you are completely responsible. If you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. A key result area is an activity that is under your control. It produces an output that becomes an input or a contributing factor to the work of others.

Key result areas are similar to the vital functions of the body, such as those indicated by blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and brain-wave activity. An absence of any one of these vital functions leads to the death of the organism. By the same token, your failure to perform in a critical result area of your work can lead to the end of your job as well.

The Big Seven in Management and Sales

The key result areas of management are planning, organizing, staffing, delegating, supervising, measuring, and reporting. These are the areas in which a manager must get results to be successful in his or her area of responsibility. A weakness in any one of these areas can lead to underachievement and failure as a manager.

The key result areas of sales are prospecting, building rapport and trust, identifying needs, presenting persuasively, answering objections, closing the sale, and getting resales and referrals. Poor performance in any one of these key skills can lead to lower sales and sometimes the failure of a salesperson.

Whatever you do, you must have certain essential skills for you to do your job in an excellent fashion. These demands are constantly changing. You have already developed core competencies that make it possible for you to do your job in the first place. But certain key results are central to your work and determine your success or failure in your job. What are they?

Clarity Is Essential

The starting point of high performance is for you to identify the key result areas of your work. Discuss them with your boss. Make a list of your most important output responsibilities, and make sure that the people above you, on the same level as you, and below you are in agreement with it.

For example, for a salesperson, getting qualified appointments is a key result area. This activity is the key to the entire sales process. Closing a sale is also a key result area. When the sale is made, it triggers the activities of many other people to produce and deliver the product or service.

For a company owner or key executive, negotiating a bank loan may be a key result area. Hiring the right people and delegating effectively are both key result areas. For a receptionist or secretary, typing letters and answering the phone and transferring callers quickly and efficiently are defined as key result areas. People’s ability to perform these tasks quickly and efficiently largely determines their pay and promotability.

Give Yourself a Grade

Once you have determined your key result areas, the second step is for you to grade yourself on a scale of one to ten (with one being the lowest and ten being the highest) in each of those areas. Where are you strong and where are you weak? Where are you getting excellent results and where are you underperforming?

Rule: Your weakest key result area sets the height at which you can use all your other skills and abilities.

This rule says that although you could be exceptional in six out of your seven key result areas, poor performance in the seventh area will hold you back and determine how much you achieve with all your other skills. This weakness will act as a drag on your effectiveness and be a constant source of friction and frustration.

For example, delegating is a key result area for a manager. This skill is the key leverage point that enables a manager to manage and to get results through others. A manager who cannot delegate properly is held back from using all his or her other skills at the maximum levels of effectiveness. Poor delegation skills alone can lead to failure in the job.

Poor Performance Produces Procrastination

One of the major reasons for procrastination in the workplace is that people avoid jobs and activities in those areas where they have performed poorly in the past. Instead of setting a goal and making a plan to improve in a particular area, most people avoid that area altogether, which just makes the situation worse.

The reverse of this is that the better you become in a particular skill area, the more motivated you will be to perform that function, the less you will procrastinate, and the more determined you will be to get the job finished.

The fact is that everybody has both strengths and weaknesses. Refuse to rationalize, justify, or defend your areas of weakness. Instead, identify them clearly. Set a goal and make a plan to become very good in each of those areas. Just think! You may be only one critical skill away from top performance at your job.

The Great Question

Here is one of the greatest questions you will ever ask and answer. “What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”

You should use this question to guide your career for the rest of your life. Look into yourself for the answer. You probably know what it is.

Ask your boss this question. Ask your coworkers. Ask your friends and your family. Whatever the answer is, go to work to bring up your performance in this area.

The good news is that all business skills are learnable. If anyone else is excellent in that particular key result area, this is proof that you can become excellent as well, if you decide to.

One of the fastest and best ways to stop procrastinating and get more things done faster is for you to become absolutely excellent in your key result areas. This can be as important as anything else you do in your life or your career.