Reset the Stage for the New Year
Looking ahead to the new year is always an exciting time. The thought of a fresh start and the ability to clear results from the past year can inspire new energy for leaders and associates alike. Over the course of the next five posts I am going to share some ideas on:
- how you may be able to reset your stage for 2018,
- inspire your team to be new heights,
- recognize the team more effectively,
- develop their leadership skills further, and
- to encourage your own personal development.
In all, more than 25 ideas that you can use to help make 2018 your best year ever.These first five ideas are meant to reset the stage for the coming year. While it is almost impossible for most businesses to just draw a line between last year and the new year, these can help you delineate better for your team to move forward with a fresh outlook.Here are 5 things you can do to reset the stage for the New Year.
Clean Up
One of the best ways to reset yourself for the new year is to clean out the old stuff from various places. Start with your email. Hopefully, your inbox is already pretty clean, but if not, set aside some time and sort through each quickly. If anything is more than 30 days old, file it and move on. Once that portion is cleaned up, set up new folders for the new year. You do not need many, especially with the powerful search features most email applications have today. If you do not have a system to sort daily emails, I would recommend a simple collection of 4 boxes to sort things into. Due Today, Due this week, Future Follow Up and Waiting for Response. These will allow you to keep your inbox clean each day going forward. By using the other boxes you can prioritize the emails you do need to take action on. Get into the habit of reviewing them daily with once a week dedicated to a full review and cleanse.If you have paper files still, clean out what you no longer need from the previous year and establish your new folders for the new year.Take some time to clean off your desk. Dust, and vacuum as needed. You want to be able to come into a clean, ready to go office when you start the new year. It will help you be ready for a fresh start.
Team Goal Setting
Plan some time before the end of the year or as early as possible in the new year to bring your team together. Ideally, this would be in person, but if that is not possible, a conference call dedicated to planning will work. Set only one agenda item for this meeting. Establish the goals and priorities for the year. Ensure everyone has a voice on the team. Save your ideas and opinions until everyone has contributed so you do not influence their input. You can ask others for feedback and obstacles to create discussion as suggestions are being made. The goal for this is to encourage the team to define what they want to accomplish in 2018. This will create ownership to the goals and engagement from the process. Once you have a good framework to build on, you can then steer to some goals you know you will need to take on or that will be part of key company initiatives. In the end, you will end up with 3-5 solid goals that you can own as a team. You may be able to find a balance between team selected goals and a couple of Company driven outcomes.
Build a Theme
This is a way to have some fun as well as rally the team around a common outcome. Finding a theme for your year can be an easy way to create some excitement as well as make it memorable for all levels of the team. Many times themes can create a connection that the team can rally behind. It is a way to bring your goals to life and have a communications plan mesh together that can be used throughout the entire year. You may even be able to find theme music or some videos to help tie into the theme you have selected. Another idea is to define an acronym for your goals and make that your theme for the year. Don’t forget to create a logo for your theme as well.
Hold a Kickoff Meeting
This is a pretty common practice for most businesses, but for good reason. Get the team together, again in person is best, but a conference call will work also. Use the meeting to discuss what was accomplished in the previous year, what was learned, and what can be done better in the future. Use this as a way to close out as much of the previous year as possible. Then turn your attention to what the new year holds. Incorporate the goals you have set as a team and begin to build the strategies on how you will achieve those goals. What new resources will be needed? What additional support will the team need? How can everyone work better together to accomplish more this year? Make this a fun event as well as a productive way to align on goals, strategies, resource needs, and expected outcomes. Everyone should come away with a clear vision for what this year will look like.
Change a Form of Communication
We all use different methods of communicating with our teams. Often we have been using those same tools in the same way for quite some time. Challenge yourself to take one of your communication methods and completely change it up. It could be the elimination of a form of communication or an addition of one. If you have a regular conference call with your team - what could you change to bring new life to it? Could it become a video conference instead of an audio only call? Could you use short video messages to your team instead of so many emails? We all have a lot of access to communication tools today, so look for something new and different to engage your team in a different way. You may find that it resonates better with your team than what you have been doing for years before.These are just a few ways you can help to reset the stage for the new year. Having a clear delineation between last year and the new one can help everyone mentally charge forward into what is ahead instead of lingering in what has been.What ideas or tools have you used to help reset for the new year? Share your ideas and stories in comments.Up next…Inspire Your Team to Do More in the New Year.