ceoMark Pincus, founder and chief executive of Zynga, a provider of on-line social games, talks about scalability of organizations: “You can manage 50 people through strength of personality and lack of sleep. You can touch them all in a week and make sure they are all pointed in the right direction.” (The New York Times, January 31, 2010). Beyond that, “you’ve got to find some way to keep everybody going in productive directions when you are not in the room.”

Pincus’s solution? Post blank sheets of paper on the wall with everyone’s name on a sheet: “By the end of the week everyone needs to write what you are CEO of and it needs to be something meaningful… People liked it (and) there was nowhere to hide.”

Pincus asks that everyone have and know their “Objective and Key Results” (O.K.R.s). “The whole company and every group has one objective and three measurable key results.” The goal is to keep “people focused on the three things that matter – not the 10.”

Pincus also asks everyone to write down at the end of the work week or over the weekend their three priorities for the coming week and then on Friday report how they did against them. Pincus believes that these techniques are applicable in other areas as well: “These road maps are great principles for managing your life.”

Closing thoughts:  Life is not a dress rehearsal and we are the directors and script writers of the ongoing staging of our lives. Enjoy.