With so many of us returning to work after our summer holidays refreshed and full of energy, it’s a good idea to use this momentum to refocus and accelerate into action to finish the year strong.
And September is a fantastic time to create an action plan for the final third of the year.
The switched on manager realises that an enormous amount can be achieved between now and the end of the year, and that it’s important to set the tone, assess the team, and recalibrate their team goals for the next four months.
Before you launch headlong into action, you need to assess where you are right now.
1. Go back to the long-term goals you set in January.
Where are you currently? Are your goals still realistic and, above all S.M.A.R.T.?
Or do you have to rethink and re prioritise because of events, setbacks or project delays that have happened so far?
How many of your goals have you and your team reached- and how many have you surpassed?
Which goals have you failed to reach, and why?
2. Assess your team.
What are the team’s strengths, and what are their development areas? Have you done as much as you can to bring out the former, and facilitate improvement of the latter? Is this the team you want to move forward with? Are they satisfied with their job role and performance (and yours?)
3. Assess your own job performance.
What have you learnt as a manager? If the team failed to reach their targets, what role did you play in that and could it be improved? What’s working and what’s not? What would you do differently if you had that time again?
Once you’ve looked backwards, it’s time to use that information to move forward.
1. Write a new set of goals for the remainder of the year. Perhaps you needed to tweak your earlier goals, maybe they aren’t relevant anymore due to a changing market, or maybe you blitzed your targets so you need to raise the bar to keep everyone motivated.
There’s no issue in changing your goals to be more realistic or optimistic, but there can be great harm in refusing to change them if they are not suitable to your team’s current circumstances. You don’t want to make people feel deflated, burnt out, or even under-challenged.
2. Think strategically about your team and what needs to be implemented to move everyone forward towards the end goal. Consider what you need to provide in the context of training and development , and schedule meetings with your team to ask them how they’re doing and what support they need from you to reach their own and the teams new goals. Spread an infectious energy and enthusiasm about how much you can all achieve by Christmas.
3. Looking at your own recent performance, how can you adapt what you’ve learnt to run your team better in the next four months? What would you like to learn to do better, and are there any training and development opportunities available to you as a manager? How can you become a better leader?
Some teams tend to take their foot off the accelerator in the final few months of the year, but this is a hugely wasted opportunity.
Instead, take advantage of the fresh ‘new year’ energy of September, assess where you’ve been, set some exciting goals, and then chase like crazy.
Remember, four months can change everything.
Until next time,
Julia
