My grandmother had this lovely set of nesting dolls when I was a kid. One day, as I was playing with them, she invited me to bring them home. Gleefully, I started shoving all the pieces in my bag. Which would not zip.

Turns out, the nesting is the key. As separate pieces, it’s a lot. But nested, the set fits. Takes up less space.

Put a pin in that. Just for a second.

Lately, I’ve been running a lot of offsites. Working with teams to help them define better ways of working.

I always do some discovery interviews ahead of an offsite. Across teams and organizations the themes can really differ. But one that seems to be on fire these days – that comes up in every offsite? It’s priorities. As in – we have waaaaayyyy too many.

But here’s the curious thing. I present the discovery themes at the start of the offsite, and this one always hits. I raise the too-many-priorities issue and get vigorous head nods all around. But when I ask the team to generate a list of these too-many priorities?

They pause. They look at me. And then each other. And then start to ask versions of…well what exactly do you mean by ‘priority’?

And I’m like…well, you tell me! You told me you have too many. So, what were you envisioning in the commentary?

I tell them to just start listing. And here’s a sample of what I got in my most recent offsite.

Revenue growth.

Customer retention.

Innovation.

Product development.

Communication.

Trust.

Collaboration.

And there’s the aha.

The real problem – or at least the first problem – is this: it’s not a volume issue. But a nesting one.

As separate pieces, it’s a lot. But nested, the set fits. Takes up less space.

Revenue growth and Customer retention? These are North Stars. The destination you’re heading toward.

Innovation and Product development? These are capabilities. How you’re trying to get there. Because innovation that doesn’t serve revenue growth? It’s just tinkering.

Communication? Trust? Collaboration? Those are behaviors. They're ways in which we do innovation and product development in service of moving the needle toward revenue growth and customer retention.

If we treat these all as to-do’s, of course we’re overwhelmed!

But when we nest them? We see the inherent hierarchy? The game starts to change. And we can breathe.

Look, I’m not here to minimize overwhelm. It’s real. Some teams do indeed have too many priorities. But before we can begin to cull and curate? We have to nest them. To sharpen the list. And then hard choices may need to be made - things may need to be cut, shrunk, or delayed.

So what’s the leader’s role here?

Clarity first.

If your team is claiming too many priorities, start by asking them for the list. What do they believe are the things competing for resources?

Listen and capture.

Are they genuinely listing dozens of projects and initiatives? Or are there maybe some stars or capabilities lingering in there?

Help them find the nest.

For me, this means standing and stating with clarity – what our North Stars are. Where we’re headed as an organization and why.

Then it’s placing our bets. What capabilities we’re collectively investing in.

It’s helping our teams see the connectivity. Listing actual projects and initiatives and really examining – are these moving us toward our North Star? Meaningfully? Equally? How much effort does each require? Which will pay off quickly and which are slower burners? Which are built on similar foundations such that we might better leverage work across silos?

Maybe you still have too many. Maybe you're looking at eight major initiatives when you realistically only have capacity for three. If that's true, now you know what you're actually choosing between. Now you can make real tradeoffs.

But maybe – based on my personal experience - maybe too many things were jumbled together. Revenue and trust and communication and product launches all piled in the same bag, taking up the same mental space, competing for the same attention.

And once you nest them properly, suddenly you can see what you're really dealing with.

Suddenly the bag's big enough after all.

The problem isn't always too many priorities.

Sometimes it's that we're calling everything a priority when half of it is something else entirely.

Sometimes we just need someone to show us how the dolls fit.