The Power of the Big “A” Agenda and the little “a” agenda

What’s the difference between a Big A Agenda and a little a agenda? How do you use both as a leader?

If your leadership team is not working as effectively as you’d like, one place to look is the effectiveness of your meetings. And to have effective meetings, you need to have a good agenda. As the leader, you want to think about your agenda at two levels: your Agenda with a big A and your agenda with a little a.

The Big Agenda communicates the major strategic goals for your organization. Your Big Agenda tells a story about who we are and where we are going. The initiatives in your Big Agenda will require your focus over the course of a year or more.

By comparison, the little agenda is like a more conventional meeting agenda. What do you want to accomplish in the next hour? What are the specific outcomes or decisions you want to make? The Big Agenda is macro; the little agenda is micro.

In my experience, most executive leaders have a preference for either Big A or little a. They lean heavily to one or the other. Here’s the problem – if your style is all Big A, with no little a, people will be inspired at first but then frustrated. They will want clarity – plus direction and action.

However, if your style is all little agenda with no Big Agenda, people will wonder why they are doing the work in the first place. They want context and to know that what they are doing ultimately matters.

The worst case is the frazzled and weak leader who tends to neglect both the Big Agenda and the little agendas. They do not clearly communicate the big story nor do they guide their team to chunk it down into concrete steps.

When you put both A/agendas together you have a very powerful package – a Big Agenda that tells an inspiring story about who we are and where we are going, combined with a series of little agendas that lead us step by step towards the realization of the vision. So the great executive must develop skills as a strategic storyteller and as a masterful teacher and facilitator of his or her team. Bringing the Big Agenda and the little agendas together requires prep time, focus, and practice.

So how about you? What’s your Big Agenda? And how are you lining up your little agendas to support the Big Agenda?