“And time for reflection with colleagues is for me a lifesaver; it is not just a nice thing to do if you have the time. It is the only way you can survive.” Margaret J. Wheatley
“We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly. . . spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.” Susan Taylor
“If you've lost focus, just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes
If there’s one thing you can count on approaching the New Year, it’s that there will be reviews of the previous year’s highlights, and, of course, the predictable predictions for the future. Just the word “New” triggers a natural response that it is time to take stock and to refocus. And it should be no different with business. It’s especially important for businesses that lack comprehensive Key Performance Indicators, which is most of the “small” ones. Having Financial Reviews done by an accountant is great, but it only looks at the financial side and there’s a lot more to business than that.
Here’s how I like to take stock:Focus on what is/was Important?
For some, it’s about growing revenue; for others it can be about strengthening foundations to support sustainability, etc.Ask yourself these key questions:
· How has what’s important changed from last year?
· If what’s important to you has changed, then why?
o New influences?
o Changing/evolving environment? (It always is.)
o Learning that has changed your perspective?
o Change in circumstances?
How was your Business’s Performance?
· What worked?
· What didn’t work?
This is always about leveraging your strengths and mitigating your weaknesses but when you look at it from the perspective of what’s working, it also incorporates the nebulous, but important, premise of opportunity (which can be so elusive). It can be a great way of honing in on opportunity.
Progress made?
· Where are you relative to where you want to be?
· How off-course are you?
Drift is normal. Try to walk a straight line in the snow where’s there’s no obvious path; from one point to another. It doesn’t need to be far, a couple hundred feet will prove the point. It inevitably won’t be straight no matter how hard you try to make it so or how well you think you’re doing/have done.
Here’s the funny thing about Progress: it can lag Performance because you need to have the resources, systems, and expertise in place and that can take time. And here’s the funny thing about Performance: we generally over-estimate our performance. Same phenomenon as with more than 50% of drivers thinking they’re better than average drivers. Some are unfortunately wrong. So while some excuses may be valid, the most important value in reviewing Progress is that it’s a reality check.
All this, of course, just lays the groundwork for the really important task of recalibrating your Strategic Plan. It’s about taking what you’ve learned and incorporating it into how you’d like to move forward. And it’s always about moving forward in a positive way.
So, while we may not necessarily look forward to our report card or review or whatever you wish to call it, it’s helpful in deciding how to move forward. If you take stock and adjust your plans accordingly, it can be the difference between a great result and getting side-lined. What may seem like small insights can make a big difference. Figuring how to make things work always looks easy in hindsight but it rarely is. You have to keep picking away at it so the culmination of many small insights can develop into something significant; it is like eating the elephant a bite at a time. It can seem overwhelming but over time progress is made. And, if you can look at things from different perspectives, they can be like having a bit of old sandwich mold contaminate your beaker and providing the breakthrough that you need. But it still takes rumination and lots of it. Even Einstein didn’t figure out the theory of relativity without significant rumination. And most of us probably need to ruminate more than he did.
