What did you achieve in 2007?

What did you achieve in 2007?

Don’t worry – it’s not a typo! And it’s also not a clichéd attempt to get you to create some business New Year’s resolutions, albeit 10 days too late.

Rather, it’s a trigger to get you to think ahead 12 months and picture the scene.

Let’s imagine that you and your team run your business or your function almost exactly as you did last year. Let’s say that apart from a few tweaks e.g. a new member of staff or a new brand of coffee in the canteen, you carry on just as you did over the previous 12 months. Just to be generous, let’s assume you up your targets by a few percentage points, you increase the pressure on your people by a notch or two and you introduce a no email policy on Friday. 

And that’s about it.

Where will you be by the end of the year?
Well, I imagine you’ll be pretty much where you are today. You’ll see one or two small but insignificant changes to your results but that’s about it. You’ll have passed the time adequately but fundamentally you’ve stood still. You will have answered thousands of emails, attended hundreds of meetings, made countless decisions…but to a passing observer you’ll be in the same place you started.

How does it feel? Exciting? Stretching? Challenging? Energising? Satisfying?
Or pointless? Boring? Stale?

I believe the greatest satisfaction in work comes from achievement; a job well done; a sense that you made an impact; had an effect.

In a way, I don’t care what you do that gives you that feeling. Some people get a rush from making a big sale. Others get it from bringing out the best in their colleagues. Others get it when they come up with a great new idea. The point is that big, great, best, new…these are the words that make our blood pump.

This year you can make a big splash in your business. You probably don’t know yet what this will be. But tweaking at the edges of how you and your team function won’t get that result.

Shake up how you do things – how you make decisions, how you generate ideas, how you motivate and inspire others – and you’ll create space for the best, most radical, most profitable, most mind-blowing ideas and decisions to bubble to the surface in 2007.