Management, Human Resources, and Life in a Customer Focused World

One thing that I’ve noticed some companies doing is having annual meetings to discuss what the best and worst were for the year prior.  Once those have been determined, the team begins to brainstorm and figure out what to do this year to prevent failures again and what needs to be done to sustain the successes.  These are usually handled at the middle management level, though sometimes top level and bottom level employees are also included.

The biggest pitfall that companies doing this need to be aware of is something that I’ve also noticed in the last three places that I’ve been where this type of brainstorming session has been put to use.

Identifying 10 priorities to improve and then only hitting 10% of them.

It’s great to have some major goals.  That’s the point. But if your list of goals is unattainable because you’re trying to do to much with the resources available, you’ll simply be compiling the exact same list next year … and the year after … and so forth.  Pick the top three priorities that need to be done.

If you get them done before the end of the year, have a second meeting — there’s no rule that says you can’t optimize your priority list more than once a year.

If you don’t get them done, you need to look at whether the priorities are actually priorities or whether you’re simply putting them up because they “might look good” if they were accomplished.

Having a list of priorities and things that really need to get done because they are the “worst” of last year means that they really should be focused on.  Get them done.  If you don’t, not getting them done will end up on the “worst” of the current year — morale will suffer, your priority list will simply cease to have importance, and you’re just wasting everyone’s time.