In With the New

I really love New Year’s. The holiday itself isn’t anything special to me – but I love what it signifies. I love it even more for business. It’s the perfect time to set yourself up for success in the next year. To review what you failed at this year. Normally some time late 3rd quarter or early 4th quarter, I get away for a few days and start thinking in the direction of next year. I’m always thinking about the next thing and what we’re driving towards, but this time of year is my favorite. We can celebrate the successes of the current year and get ready to succeed next time.

We also benchmark as a company – and I ask our teams to do the same. Here’s what I asked from our Kangabloo team.

As we wrap up 2013, I hope you’re looking forward into 2014. Part of success in any business (but especially ours) is always being a step ahead and seeing the future. The next thing. For this reason, it’s important that we spend some time goal setting for next year.

 Here’s what I need from you:

• Make a list of goals for us as a company. I’m thinking 3-5. Make sure they’re not just something thrown together, but well thought out things we need to improve on to be the best we can be. What’s going to make us better and move us forward? 
• Make a list of personal goals for yourself. These shouldn’t be work-related, but rather just things you want to do to improve your life or yourself as a person in the next year. Up to you if you want to share these with me or not. If you do, I will hold you to them. If you don’t, it’s totally fine – but please make sure you’re working to advance yourself. 
• Make a list of professional goals for next year. Again, 3-5 here. Please know that I will take these very seriously and will hold you accountable. We will begin doing evaluations once every 3 months like I do with other companies, and at that point we’ll review these goals and how they’re progressing. I will also use my connections and relationships to help you reach your goals – find someone who is doing what you want to do better well and have them help walk you through the process. 

Asking my team to look at these things challenges them to evaluate themselves. How did we win? Where did we lose? Where do we do better? Additionally, it gives them the opportunity to push themselves. We will review the goals they set in one-on-one meetings the first week of January. We’ll set those goals and review them quarterly during the evaluations.

Personally, setting  my goals, putting them on paper, and sharing them with my team also holds me accountable. We’re all looking at New Years Resolutions now – but how will you hold on to yours? Who will hold you accountable? Here’s to making 2014 the best year yet!