Thank you for joining the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast!
In this episode, let’s talk about an important skill that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves: resource allocation. Resource allocation is investing your available resources in the present to accomplish your goals and objectives in the future.
It’s easy to get caught up in balancing competing needs and priorities when we feel bound by resource limitations. When the average person thinks about allocating resources, it’s easy to view resources as limited—we only have so much time and money to spend, right? Well, let’s look at it from another angle:
When you spend something, you’re using it up or paying it out. You’re making an even trade. But when you’re investing, you don’t expect an equal return—you expect an exponentially larger one.
There are two things you need to do before you start allocating your resources.
1. Clearly define your win. You can’t accomplish what you don’t define. If you don’t know the win, you’ll spend your resources. If you know the win, you can invest your resources in the right direction. Defining the win impacts what you do daily.
2. Take inventory of what you have to work with. Don’t limit your inventory to what is obvious, like financial assets or space. You have time. You have energy. You have people and the combined knowledge of your team. You have more to work with than you realize!
Once you’ve defined your win clearly and taken inventory of all the resources you have, intentionally invest your resources in the direction of the desired result. Ask yourself and your team, what has the highest potential return on investment?
To get the highest return on your investment, you’ll need to be different than most leaders in a few key ways:
· Most leaders decide how to spend money. You’ll need to agonize about how to invest it.
· Most leaders want to use people to get the desired results. You’ll need to invest in helping leaders get better so that ultimately, the whole organization can get better.
· Most leaders spend their time doing tasks. You’ll need to intentionally invest your time achieving desired results.
In the next episode, we’ll dive even deeper into this topic and get practical on how to allocate our resources the right way and what mistakes we have to avoid at all costs.
Remember, you don’t have to know it all to be a great leader! Be yourself. People would rather follow a leader who is always real than one who is always right.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Here's an exercise you can do to grow as a leader—ask your team these questions:
1. What are your three biggest organizational wins? Answering this question might take some time, but you must answer this question to be successful. You must have an answer to this question in order to align what you have with what you want to accomplish.
2. What current program, project, initiative, or leader has the highest potential return on investment? What are you doing to do about it?
EPISODE RESOURCES
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