It’s October. Three months remain in the year, and somewhere in your organization someone is saying, “We need to finish strong.”
Fair enough. There are commitments to honor, customers to serve, and goals people have worked toward all year. Finishing strong is a reasonable expectation. But before you ask everyone to pick up the pace, have you taken a fresh look at what you’re asking them to accomplish?
Quite a bit may have changed since January. A customer you expected to grow has pulled back. A valued employee has left, and the position remains open. A project that looked promising has become more complicated than anyone anticipated. You may also have won business you hadn’t anticipated or seen people deliver well beyond expectations.
Meanwhile, the original goals are still on the list, along with everything added during the past nine months. Your people may already know the plan needs attention. They’re the ones working around the gaps every day.
Take a Fresh Look at the Plan
Think back to when this year’s priorities were established. What assumptions went into those decisions? Perhaps you expected a full team, a particular level of demand, or a new system to be working by spring. If those assumptions no longer hold, they deserve a conversation before the fourth-quarter push begins.
You can hold people accountable and still acknowledge that circumstances have changed. Before deciding someone has fallen short, make sure you understand the conditions in which you’ve asked them to deliver.
Suppose a team was expected to launch a new service this year. The launch depended on hiring two people and completing a system upgrade. Only one person was hired, and the upgrade is still unfinished. Repeating the original deadline more forcefully won’t resolve either problem. Someone needs to decide what is possible, what support is required, and what commitment can realistically be made. That decision belongs with leadership.
Recognize What Has Gone Right
As you review the first nine months, begin by recognizing what people have accomplished. Perhaps a client took the time to praise the service they received. A new customer signed on because someone kept following up and earned their confidence. A team completed a project on time and under budget, or delivered work that exceeded expectations.
Name those accomplishments and give credit to the people responsible. Ask what helped them succeed. Their answers may reveal an approach worth repeating or a way of working that could help another team.
There’s room for a round of applause here. People deserve to hear that their efforts have been noticed. Then you can say, “We have good work to build on. Now let’s look at what needs our attention during these final three months.”
Give People a Clear Order of Priorities
When everything carries the same urgency, people have to make their own choices about what gets attention. One person responds to whoever asks most often. Another works on the task most likely to attract criticism if it’s late. Work that matters may wait because nobody is asking about it.
Before adding another “must finish by December” assignment, look at what is already underway. Does your team know which commitments come first? If two deadlines collide, do they know how to proceed, or must they guess what you’ll want?
You may believe you’ve made the priorities clear. Ask people to describe them back to you. Their answers will tell you more than another look at the presentation used to announce the plan.
A useful question is: “If we could accomplish only three significant things before year end, which three would make the greatest difference?” You may discover that you and your team have very different answers. Better to find that out now, while there’s time to agree on what comes first.
Make Room for an Honest Answer
There’s another question worth asking: “What am I missing about the work required to get this done?”
Then give people time to answer. Resist the urge to explain why the deadline matters before they’ve finished describing the problem. They probably know it matters. What they need is an opportunity to explain the obstacle and help work out a solution.
You may hear about a decision waiting for approval, a recurring customer issue, or work that takes far longer than you realized. Some of these problems may be within your authority to resolve this week. Before asking people to push harder, see where a decision or some help from you could move the work forward.
The fourth quarter gives you a useful checkpoint. Review the commitments, recognize the accomplishments, and listen to the people doing the work. Then make the decisions they need from you. “Finish strong” becomes more useful when everyone understands what a strong finish actually looks like.
Think About This
Which priority are you still treating as essential because it was important in January? What has changed since then, and have you discussed those changes with your team?
Action Items
This week, review your year-end priorities with the people responsible for delivering them. Begin by recognizing specific accomplishments and asking what helped those successes happen. Then agree on the three outcomes that matter most for the remaining months, identify the obstacles, and decide who will address each one. Make sure everyone leaves knowing what comes first when demands compete.
Wenkroy International LLC is a Professional Advisory company with a main purpose of helping entrepreneurs and business people create the strategy, the plan and the steps necessary to achieve that person’s vision for their business and often their life, while navigating the obstacles which may be blocking them from reaching their goals. The process may involve one on one coaching, advising, laser focus days, personal growth workshops and more. The methods utilized are determined together. The results and value positively impact individuals, teams, divisions and across entire companies. People are now able to focus on what matters most to them, because, they have clarity on where they are heading.
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