Not Everything Can Happen Now

One of the easiest mistakes we make is assuming that because something is important to us, it should immediately become important to everyone else.

Yet think of an orchestra:

Every instrument matters. No one says the violins are more important than the percussion or that the trumpet deserves more attention than the cello.

But if every musician decided to play whenever they thought their part was important...you wouldn't get music.

You'd get noise.

A conductor doesn't decide which instruments matter. The music already answers that question and assures every part has a place.

The conductor's job is to help everyone understand when their part fits into the whole. Organizations aren't all that different.

One of the realities of leadership is that there are usually far more worthwhile ideas than there is time, money or capacity to pursue them all at once.

Before we ever talk about sequence, we have to make sure we're working on the right things. Do these projects support our mission? Do they move us toward our goals? Are they worthy of our limited time and resources?

Once ideas, projects and tasks have made it through that filter, leadership faces another challenge: not everything can happen now.

We spend a lot of time talking about priorities, but sometimes use that word to mean several different things - maybe that something is important, or maybe urgent or maybe that it should happen first. And those aren’t always the same thing.

An initiative can be critical to the organization's future and still not be the next thing that needs attention. Another project may need to be completed first. A deadline may have to be met. Resources may need to be freed up. Decisions may need to be made before the next piece can move forward.

That's not because one priority matters more than another. It's because progress has a sequence.

This becomes especially important in decentralized organizations.

People naturally become experts in their own corner of the work. For instance, the conference committee understands conference deadlines. Membership understands recruitment. Finance understands cash flow. Communications understands publications. Governance understands bylaws.

Each sees genuine urgency from where they sit. And they're usually right.

Whether you're leading a department, serving on a committee or running an entire organization, the challenge is that no one sees the entire score by themselves.

Where organizations often get stuck isn't because people care about the wrong things. It's because they understandably assume that if something feels urgent from their perspective, it must feel urgent from the organization’s perspective.

Leadership isn't about dismissing those perspectives. It's about helping everyone understand how they fit together. People are far more likely to support a decision they understand than one they simply receive. Sometimes that means saying, "Yes, this matters. And here's why something else has to happen first."

That can be difficult. When your project gets pushed back, it's easy to feel like your work isn't valued or that someone else's priorities are winning.

Helping people understand the sequence isn't about diminishing their work. It's about showing them how it fits into something larger and understanding how today's work creates the conditions for tomorrow's.

That's why one of the healthiest conversations a leadership team can have isn't just "What's important?" It's also:

• What needs to happen first?

• What depends on that?

• If we move this forward, what has to move back?

• Does everyone understand why we've chosen this sequence?

Those conversations don't eliminate disappointment, but they do build trust. There will still be moments when someone wishes their project had come sooner.

But those conversations do replace confusion with clarity. Like an orchestra, organizations do their best work when everyone understands not only their part, but why it enters when it does.

Leadership isn't making every priority happen at once. It's helping people understand what needs to happen now, what can happen next, and how each piece contributes to something bigger.

That's how organizations stop competing with themselves. And that's how they make music instead of noise.