It’s That Time of Year; Time to Plan for Next Year

Every fall, we gather at an annual offsite meeting to set goals, no more than three per year, for the upcoming year. We also include time for socializing with each other (though, this year, it’s all remote meetings and a virtual happy hour).

Not only does it give us a clear focus for the next 12 months, but it also reminds us of why we are choosing to build a business together.

Here are the guidelines we follow:

  • Limit goals to no more than three, with one identified as the top goal.
  • Make goals measurable so you know when your goals have been met.
  • Assign ultimate responsibility for each goal to someone with the proper authority.
  • Have frequent updates to “shine a light” on progress toward each goal.
  • Create a theme that ties everyone in the company to the top goal for the year.
  • Hold quarterly meetings to review what’s been done and what’s next.

Here’s the low-down how we run our Strategic Planning two-day offsite.

standardSeptember 23Tom SalonekArticle on Intertech

A Communication Cheat Sheet to Help Leadership Understand One Another

At Intertech, we improve communication in the leadership team through personality cheat sheets, which are personality profiles that remind us who hates long-winded descriptions and who struggles to make a decision that involves something unpleasant. This is to keep us from driving each other crazy in those little annoying everyday ways that creep up when people work closely together for a long time. The cheat sheets are the result of a personality inventory similar to a Myers–Briggs test. I highly recommend it for any group of partners or managers who work closely together.

Also, we are intentional about building strong, trusting relationships among the leadership team. Pre-COVID, a weekly lunch at a local restaurant took us away from the daily press of business and helped us reconnect on a more fundamental level.

Here’s ours (names changed to protect the innocent) of a communication cheat sheet.

standardSeptember 16Tom SalonekHappy Employees

Reviews Don’t Work, Here’s a Tool for Performance Management

Professionals expect clarity in performance appraisals and promotions. Make sure the expectations are set clearly from the very first day and give frequent feedback along the way. We’ve adopted the Dale Carnegie Key Result Areas (KRAs) approach to talent management. We use the following questions:

  • What is the purpose of my job? This answer should be extremely simple, such as “selling our services.”
  • What do I need to do to make it happen? For someone in sales, the answer might be “call 100 potential clients every day.”
  • What tools do I need to be successful? For a salesperson, training in phone skills or negotiation techniques might be in order.
  • How do I know when results have been achieved?

Here’s a template to help you implement KRAs for performance management.

standardSeptember 9Tom SalonekBook Takeaway Post

Top Downloadable Resources from The 100

My book, The 100, was supplemented by more than 25 downloadable templates and checklists to help lead a team, run a business, and manage your life.  They are all available for free, and based on downloads, here are a few of the most popular:

START/STOP/CONTINUE/HASSLES SURVEY:  A survey for soliciting feedback from employees on what to quit, start, and focus on in the future.

STRATEGIC PLANNING GUIDE AND AGENDA:  A guide for execution of a two-day off-site strategic planning session.

HUDDLE AGENDA:  A guide for running an effective leadership 15-minute huddle.

standardSeptember 1Tom SalonekLeadership

An Objective Case for Optimism

For over a decade, I, along with Intertech leadership, get our economic guidance from Brian Beaulieu of ITR Economics.  He recently published Economic Recovery and Profits: Know This Trend to Make More Money.  In my experience, Mr. Beaulieu has provided reliable insights and a leading indicator with a high correlation to what eventually happens in the economy with enough lead time to take action before a downturn or uptick.

Despite how the current world feels, he believes the economy will grow, and it’s time to act.  US Industrial Production in July had a massive surge from June.  Based on their guidance, the worst for the economy is behind us.  The reasons for optimism are with the lockdown and semi-sequester (e.g., less spent on restaurants, travel, personal services, etc.), we have money to spend, and employment is picking up.

They have some insights on what to do for your business:

  • Have a plan of how to maximize opportunity and minimize risk
  • Know where you are in the business cycle
  • Make sure you have the right team.  An excellent team beats an awesome plan, eight days a week

All the above said, a big part of the optimism is an expectation of a vaccine, and governors can safely keep most of their economies open.  As leaders, our response needs to match the exponential, not linear, nature of COVID.

standardAugust 25Tom SalonekLeadership