Knowing What Really Matters
Leaders face constant pressure to keep things moving. Tasks stack up, messages arrive, and priorities shift. The pace of operations can create a false sense that everything is urgent, and if you don’t respond immediately, something will slip through the cracks. Moving faster, however, is not always the solution. Often, stronger leadership comes from knowing when to pause and refocus.
Knowing what really matters means filtering out noise, pressure, and distractions so you can return to the work that makes a lasting impact. It requires recognizing that just because a task feels loud or time‑sensitive, it may not matter nearly as much as the quieter work that builds results. When urgency dictates the day, leaders fall into reaction instead of leadership.
This session focuses on how to regain clarity in the middle of competing demands. It emphasizes training yourself to think in real time, ask the right questions, and resist being drawn into tasks that consume energy without delivering results. At 3M Chemical Operations, the ability to assess priorities under pressure is essential to safe, efficient, and reliable performance. It helps leaders protect what matters most: people, process, and outcomes.
The aim should not be to accomplish everything. The aim is to ensure the right work is completed and your energy is invested where it matters most.
Self-Assessment: Knowing What Really Matters
Please take a few moments to contemplate the following self-reflection questions. Where can you identify opportunities for personal growth in your leadership?
When I’m under pressure, do I know how to slow down and reassess, or do I automatically jump into the next urgent task?
How often do I stop to ask what work actually has the biggest impact?
Do I tend to overcommit when things feel urgent, or can I say no when needed?
When I look at how I spent my last few days, did my energy go toward what really mattered?
Am I setting clear priorities at the beginning of the day, or am I letting the day decide for me?
Do I feel confident making tradeoffs when priorities conflict?
Can I explain to my team why something is a priority, or do I struggle to give that direction?
Do I regularly reflect on what got my attention and whether it was the right focus?
Remember, this self-assessment is just a starting point for understanding your knowledge of Knowing What Really Matters as a leader. It's essential to reflect on your responses and actively work on areas where improvement is needed. Additionally, working with your ECFL Leadership Coach or seeking feedback from a trusted mentor can provide valuable insights into your strengths and weaknesses.
Knowing what really matters begins with the ability to separate urgency from importance. Leaders are constantly sorting through tasks, requests, and messages, and the demand to respond quickly can blur what truly deserves attention.
Urgency often feels loud. It arrives suddenly, carries time pressure, and pushes its way to the front. Importance, on the other hand, is tied directly to outcomes. It supports safety, quality, performance, and team stability. Without a way to distinguish between the two, leaders risk chasing whatever appears first instead of focusing on what makes the biggest difference.
Strong prioritization depends on having a clear mental filter. It means pausing long enough to scan the situation and ask: What will make an impact here? What is just noise?
In a production environment like 3M Chem Ops, competing demands are constant. Prioritization does not require perfection; it requires the ability to step back, weigh what is in front of you, and respond with intention, even when time is short.
“If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any.”
To build this ability, leaders rely on a few key skills:
Situational awareness: Understand the full picture of what is happening on your line or in your area. With broader context, it becomes easier to judge what needs attention and what can wait.
Task discipline: Know which responsibilities are central to your role and where your leadership matters most. If everything feels equally urgent, begin with what directly affects performance or risk.
Confidence in tradeoffs: Some tasks will wait. Strong prioritization means being confident in both what you choose to do and what you choose to delay.
Adaptability under pressure: Plans will shift. Instead of being pulled in every direction, leaders who know what matters adjust quickly and refocus on what counts.
These abilities take practice, but once developed, they build consistent, impact-driven decision-making. At 3M Chem Ops, this consistency supports the operational discipline needed to protect people, processes, and performance.
Most leaders begin the day with a plan. A short list of tasks, a few clear intentions for how they want to lead. But once the shift begins, even well-chosen priorities can start to slip, and other things overtake them.
You might arrive planning to coach a team member, complete a safety observation, or review production data. Then a call comes in. A question needs your attention. A request surfaces that wasn’t on the list. You say yes, thinking it will only take a minute. Before long, it is lunchtime and none of your original goals are finished!
This happens quietly, sneaking up on us. It rarely feels wrong, because in the moment you are helping, answering, responding. Yet the pattern adds up. A shift becomes a chain of small reactions, and priorities are quietly reshaped by whatever shows up first.
Consider this example: A supervisor starts the day with three clear goals. By mid-morning, they have been pulled into a schedule change, answered texts about inventory, and fielded several quick questions from the floor. Each decision made sense in the moment, but by the end of the shift, none of the original goals were met—including a follow-up on a safety concern.
This is not a failure, but it is a warning. The day was led by reaction rather than intention. When this happens repeatedly, it affects the team, the work, and the results.
Experienced leaders notice when they are being pulled off course. They reset in the moment instead of waiting until the end of the week. They apply clear filters to decide what matters now and what can wait. They recover quickly and stay connected to the responsibilities that drive performance.
Here are two tools that can help keep focus on track:
1. Real-Time Sorting Strategy: When priorities stack up, you will not always have time for deep reflection. What you need is a quick filter to decide what deserves attention. This approach aligns with the well-known urgency vs. importance framework, often called the Eisenhower Matrix. It helps leaders avoid reacting to whatever is loudest and instead anchor decisions to real impact.
Ask yourself:
Is this tied to a known safety concern or operational risk?
Will this directly affect the performance of the current shift?
Can it wait without creating a new issue?
These questions are not about long-term strategy, but instead are a quick check to make sure we keep our choices rooted in purpose rather than pressure. Over time, this kind of sorting sharpens focus and supports more consistent decision-making.
2. The Urgency Debrief
At the end of a shift, take two quiet minutes to reflect. This practice may seem small, but research shows that regular debriefs can improve individual and team performance by as much as 25 percent. Reflection is not so much about writing a formal report as it is about building a habit of clarity. Leaders who make reflection part of their routine gain insight into how urgency shapes their decisions. This awareness makes it easier to adjust, protect time for what matters, and strengthen long-term effectiveness.
Ask yourself:
What took most of my energy today?
Did that effort support safety, performance, or team clarity?
Did something important get missed, and what pushed it aside?
This does not require a formal review or a written plan. It is a simple mental habit. If urgency is taking over too often, you can adjust. You can refine your habits, shift how you respond, and protect time for the work that makes the greatest impact.
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
That idea matters now more than ever. Leaders in manufacturing don’t have the luxury of perfect days. The pressure is constant. The pace is fast. But even in a high-speed environment, strong leadership depends on slowing your thinking long enough to ask: What matters most here?
Best Practices for Knowing What Really Matters
Separate urgency from importance: Urgent tasks arrive with pressure. Important tasks carry impact. When the two blur, focus begins to slip. For example, stopping a planned safety check to attend a last-minute meeting may feel necessary. But if you pause to ask, “What is the real consequence if I wait ten minutes?” the answer is often clear. The meeting can hold. The safety check cannot.
Watch for urgency overload: Saying yes too often lets urgency build up. One request becomes several, and soon the day belongs to everyone else’s priorities. This may look like answering messages, solving small issues, and joining conversations before your first priority is complete. You are moving, but nothing meaningful is finished. When that pattern sets in, step back for two minutes. Regroup. Decide what requires your full attention and let the rest wait.
Be willing to shift when priorities change: Some days will not go as planned. A machine breaks. A customer escalates. A staffing issue appears without warning. Strong leaders do not ignore these realities, but they also do not lose sight of their plan entirely. They pause, reset, and explain the shift in focus so the team stays aligned. Adaptability means remaining steadfast and making new choices based on current priorities, rather than trying to do everything at once.
Sort based on impact, not noise: Not everything that demands your attention deserves it. Some tasks only feel urgent because they are disruptive or persistent. Finishing a quality review may add more value than answering a non-critical message that can wait until break. The clearer you are about what drives the shift—safety, reliability, and performance—the easier it becomes to decide what comes first.
Anchor your decisions in the work, not the moment: High-pressure environments can pull leaders into reacting to whatever is in front of them. But pressure is not a strategy. Anchoring decisions to the work itself provides context. Reviewing shift goals before responding to a sudden request, for example, ensures that choices remain tied to what the team and operation truly need. Responding well comes from deliberate choices, not from speed alone.
Knowing what really matters is less about strict schedules and more about presence. It is the ability to recognize when urgency has taken control, step back, and focus again on the work that truly moves the operation forward.
This skill is invaluable, as leaders who pause, reassess, and return to high-impact priorities are better prepared to guide their teams through pressure and change. Their steadiness under stress strengthens decision-making and supports a safer, more reliable environment for everyone on the shift.
At 3M Chem Ops, operational discipline rests on this kind of thinking. Leaders who choose lasting outcomes over immediate demands create stability. They make space for safety checks, coaching, and quality improvements, turning potential disorder into direction. Knowing what really matters is both a mindset and a practice. When applied consistently, it drives safety, builds consistency, and elevates performance across the operation. The challenge is simple: in the moments when urgency rises, take a step back, reset your focus, and choose the work that carries real impact.
Reflection Questions:
What are the subtle ways I let urgency reshape my priorities during the day? How often do I recognize it before it takes over?
When was the last time I made a conscious decision to pause and refocus? What helped me do that—and what made it difficult?
Are there patterns or distractions in my area that I could manage better with clearer filters or stronger leadership habits?
How clearly am I communicating what matters most to my team, especially when plans shift or priorities change?
Strengthen your understanding of Knowing What Really Matters by sticking with the following resources. Use this opportunity to note new insights and adhere to practices that will enhance your leadership journey.
4 Quadrants of Time Management Explained: A Real-Life Example
The Art of Pause: Why Elite Leaders Master the Power of "Not Yet"
When the Noise of the Urgent Overshadows the Important