If you are a regular at your local gym, you'll know that January is the worst. Throngs of people either sign up or remember their forgotten membership as they vow to make this year the year they finally get in shape. Once you have lived through a few years of the January influx, you learn to grin and bear the New Year's Resolution crowd, knowing 80 percent of resolutions fail, most by mid-February. The question then becomes, why do we think resolutions for our businesses will be any different?
A resolution is a decision to change a behavior. The very word itself has connotations of being firm, inviolate, inflexible. People resolve to quit smoking, lose weight, quit eating sugar, etc. Yet most of these decisions fall far short of actually changing the behavior itself. You can make the declaration that you will do (or quit doing) something, but without a plan of action you are destined for failure.
Likewise in business, making a resolution to double your sales volume, improve employee training processes, increase productivity, or reduce employee turnover will not translate into actionable steps you (or your employees) can take toward success. In essence, a resolution is a declarative wish.
By contrast, goals must have five SMART characteristics to be effective. Any goal you set for your business must be:
In their book, "Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard", Chip Heath and Dan Heath introduce a concept known commonly as "The Elephant and the Rider”. If you are riding an elephant, getting it to start, stop or change directions is incredibly difficult. As a small human atop an 11-foot tall, 6 ton animal, you can only influence the elephant so much, for so long. However, once the elephant is moving in your desired direction, it is much easier to maintain the pace and direction.
And so it is with your business goals for the new year. Your willpower to change your company's behavior must only extend to the point where new habits are formed. If you can distill your goals down to a few actions you want your staff to take and then effectively communicate those actions to your staff, the momentum of success will carry them forward.
Whether you are ready to streamline your HR processes in the new year or simply improve your staff's productivity, Employer Flexible can help. Let's chat about how we can help you set and crush your goals this year.