To a Successful 2019!

As the year begins to wind down, it is not too early to start thinking about the office and business goals for 2020.

It is the start of a new decade and it might be fun to also put your lofty goals on paper for the next 10 years and store them away to review in the coming years. For now, we will concentrate on 2020.

I cannot emphasize enough to start thinking like a CEO of your business and holding meetings and goal planning like you owned Amazon, not just a dentist working in their insignificant little office.

Here are some things you can start doing now as you finish up a hopefully very successful 2019.

1. Think about your goals for the year ahead and ask, “What do I want for 2020?”

Everything your company does starts with you, the CEO, seeing the future that you want. What are your big goals? Where do you want to be at the end of next year?

If you can’t picture yourself a year from now celebrating with your whole company because you achieved these goals, then your goals weren’t big enough or specific enough.

This is the most crucial step in the annual planning process. Give yourself the time and space you need to see your company’s future as clearly as possible – before the meeting. There’s no point in holding a planning session if you don’t have a vision worth planning for.

2. Get staff involved and assign some homework.

In addition to data gathering that you might assign to specific staff members, distribute the following questions and ask them to send their answers to you. You can then collate them into the annual planning meeting.

• What went right over the past 12 months?
• What went wrong over the past 12 months?
• What did we learn over the past 12 months?
• What are our greatest opportunities next year?
• What are our greatest challenges?
• How did we do on the specific and measurable activities we were keeping score on that we said would lead us to the outcome that we want?
• Envision you were starting a new company that would compete with the company you have today. Then answer these three questions: 1) What would you stop doing that you’re doing now? 2) What would you start doing that you aren’t doing now? 3) What do you see coming around the corner that we should prepare for?
• What is the number one goal you think we could achieve next year that would have the biggest impact on our company’s growth?

Their answers – and yours – are going to form the blueprint for what you cover at your annual planning meeting.

3. Hire someone to help facilitate your yearly goal planning meeting.

If you have never run a yearly planning meeting or just didn’t feel like you and your staff didn’t get a lot out of it, hire a coach or professional facilitator to help you present it. The only thing worse than not having a yearly goal planning meeting is presenting one that is unorganized, boring, not effective, and does not include everyone. A person who is used to running these type of meetings will get the most out of you, your staff, and will lead you enthusiastically into the next year. We ran yearly meetings for the past 20 years and they have been one of the most important reasons for our success.

Action Step for You: Complete the tasks above and start 2020 off on the right foot.

Building a team that is engaged and committed starts with a mindset that celebrates collaboration. Click here to get the ebook, Lessons on Employee Engagement.