How to Maximize Life’s Rhythm While Setting Goals
Goal setting conversations are best held after the holidays. December is a month of endings; January beginnings.
It’s difficult to dream about new things when you’re wrapping up old.
Go with the natural rhythm of life. Shift end of year goal setting conversations to January. During the holidays, you naturally look back. Around New Years, you instinctively turn forward.
Capitalize on natural instincts to focus on the future in January. Invite your team for one-on-ones.
Preparation:
- Think strategically and individually.
- Craft short open questions.
- Avoid either/or and yes/no questions.
- Send questions ahead of time.
- Prepare for relationship. One-on-ones often focus on process, procedure, and results, while neglecting relationships.
- Don’t think of this conversation as an annual review.
20 questions:
- What’s working for you?
- What do we need to keep doing because it works?
- What could be better?
- What might we stop doing?
- Where are you best using your talents?
- Where is the organizational energy?
- What suggestions do you have for yourself? (Focus on the future.)
- What suggestions do you have for me?
- How might I help you be more successful?
- How might you help me?
- How are you leveraging your strengths?
- Where are we going as an organization?
- Where are you going?
- What are you doing well? What are we doing well?
- What is success for you?
- What is success for our organization?
- What’s next for our organization? Think of something that could be started in the next thirty days.
- What’s next for you? Think short-term.
- Where is your greatest development opportunity?
- Where is my greatest development opportunity?
Bonus: What question would you like me to ask?
Context:
I’m going through a round of “New Year Meetings” with leaders and key players on my team.
The meetings will be both personal and strategic. I’d like to ask the same set of questions for all participants.
Which five or six questions do you find most useful? Why?
What questions would you suggest?
**Thanks to Facebook friends for your suggestions. Tomorrow’s post will answer the things that make one-on-one’s go badly.
Great timing. We are actually doing a 6 month review on goals (We set annual goals around June), and even though we have goals set these questions are still relevant to see if the goals should be modified. I am a firm believer in monitoring goals throughout the year and that they can be fluid. In general goals will remain the same, but over a year some priorities and needs change and we need to be fluid to meet these changes. In relation to that, if you already have goals some additional questions might be:
1) What changes have taken place in the organization?
2) How does this affect the organizations priorities?
3) Has anything significant changed for me personally?
3) What does this mean for my goals?
3.1) Are they still relevant?
3.2) Should they be modified and why?
3.3) Should new goals be created?
Thanks Bill. Your suggestions about being focused yet fluid is important. It’s easy to be too focused and become rigid. On the other hand, when we are too fluid, we lose focus.
Your first two questions give a great balance between looking back and looking forward. Very useful. Thanks.
My favorite question to ask, whether it is at work or at home with my wife “What can I do to help?”.
Thanks ds. That’s a great question. Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell’s Soup is the first one to teach me the power of that simple question. Cheers.
Goal is a dead line to dreams and goal setting is a process to make this journey excitable.
During this journey superiors play a pivotal role to make guys understand their goals or enable them how to achieve goal with a goal setting process.
Let them understand relevance of goal setting and it must highly enjoyable with a time bound process. Whenever they are finishing one step there must be a celebration. Aligned such process with their own personal goals and make it festival for them with a sense of acomplishment.
Winning attitude process leads to ownership ….. I hope this true sense of goal setting.
Goal setting can’t takes place in isolation.
its a journey of various processes.
Crazy
Thanks Crazy. You really nailed this one. Among other things, your inclusion of energy management is essential. It takes positive energy to achieve challenging goals.
Thanks for understanding my thought process.
Crazy
Great post, Dan.
I think the most important question is “What is success for you?” I find myself asking myself and other people that all of the time. If one does not know how to define success then he or she will never know if it is achieved.
Thanks Steve. Great seeing you here today.
It’s amazing how we can be working very hard, but not really be clear on success. What a waste. Plus, if we can define success, we can tap into purpose and values. Thanks for your insights.
Hi Dan. I regularly read you leadership blog and it resonates for me.
I like the questions:
– What impact are trying to cause/create over what time frame?
– Why does this matter to you?
– Why should others trust or follow you to this end?
Keep it up,
Thanks Brent. Love questions that cause us to reflect on impact. It’s one thing to think about process. It’s an entirely different thing to think about impact. It seems that the focus on impact provides freedom to adapt our methods, processes, and procedures.
Cheers
Dan, to mindfully harness January’s naturally motivating excitement took me by surprise and immediately made me think: Quick, finish this and that with the ‘bonus’ energy! I’ll share your great insight so that others may benefit from your blog too. By the way, your new, fresh, photograph projects today’s conversation perfectly!
Thanks Linda. Love your expression, “bonus energy.” I think it applies. When we walk with our rhythms we have “bonus energy.” Love it.
Dan,
Thanks for your post. Always great to reflect on your points.
Regarding the natural rhythm/flow of life, I totally agree with it. January is a new start, one can beginn with a fresh, clean slate. However, if one starts planning and contemplating in January, it might not be possible to start living the new plans from the first month on. Some ideas/plans just take time to think about it (like a process of “mental digestion”).
Why not start thinking (goal-setting) in the last quarter of the old year? A lot of organizations make their plans for the new year in the old year. As an individual one could try this too. I thought about this lately because a lot of times I finish my personal goal-setting way too late in February or March…
Great insight, the most important thing is if you come up with a goals strive hard to achieve them, otherwise it will be a waste of time setting goals.
Thanks Paul. Execution is more difficult than planning. 🙂
Yes. Execution is difficult. Planning is a cerebral exercise. Execution needs detailing, course corrections, regular feedbacks, dealing with people, delegation, eye on goals. But then Planning without Execution is does not lead to results and impact.
2,4,5,6,and 17 feel more like a conversation I would want to have about taking action with high impact, than layers of analysis and backdoor evaluative measures.
The one-on-ones need to be personalized for the greatest impact. The same questions for all seem to be more about collecting trend data.