Annual Reflection: Key Inquiries Leaders Should Address Prior to New Year's Eve
Dr. Jo Ilfeld, the head of Incite To Leadership, helps businesses maintain a competitive edge through optimizing their executive team's performance.
Whether you're setting New Year's resolutions or not, I believe, as pointed out by Daniel Pink, that significant milestones like the start of a new year can serve as the perfect opportunity to initiate something new. This could be a new habit, a new objective, or in the context of many businesses, assessing and revising your department's strategic priorities for 2025.
The end of one year and the start of a new one often encourages my coaching clients to reassess their priorities at work.
Many individuals have spent the past few years focusing on enhancing productivity. This has often involved handling more emails, completing more tasks on their to-do lists, finishing off more projects, or achieving a better balance between their professional and personal lives. However, my clients and I focus on productivity in a different direction. We channel our energy into tasks that significantly impact their organization. After all, climbing the ladder only holds value when it's leaning against the "right tree." In simpler terms, it's easier to strategize and execute tactics, but the real challenge lies in critically evaluating the strategy itself to ensure that the right tools are in place.
3 Pivotal Questions to Consider Before Formulating Your Organization's 2025 Strategy
To help you strategize effectively, here are three fundamental questions to ponder. Using the analogy of a mountain can help you visualize your company's strategic moves in a more holistic manner.
What observations am I making at ground level?
Before considering new strategies, it's essential to evaluate the current impact of your existing ones. While key performance indicators (KPIs) can provide valuable insights, they should be complemented with other observations. This includes assessing the overall atmosphere in the workplace—from the expressions on your team members' faces to the dynamics during meetings. By taking note of all these observations, you can base your 2025 strategy on data, rather than hopes or fears.
At the ground level, reflect on the following questions:
- How have things developed exactly as you anticipated? What has caught you off guard?
- What is the general mood within your team? Are they optimistic, stressed, discouraged, or apathetic?
- Who are your primary stakeholders? How often do you communicate with them? What are they communicating back?
- How much time do you have to contemplate and plan? How often are you surprised?
- How aligned do you feel with your team? Why or why not?
- What's the most urgent issue that your group needs to address more effectively?
What insights do I gain when I look beyond the tree line?
Overcoming the day-to-day challenges can be exhausting and may leave little room for reflection. However, stepping away from immediate concerns and gaining a broader perspective can help us grasp the situation more clearly. By looking beyond our immediate concerns, we can identify trends, anticipate challenges, and plan more effectively.
At this 2,000-foot level, consider the following questions:
- If 2024 ended as a failure, what would have likely gone wrong?
- Who on your team would be detrimental if they left? Who, on the contrary, would make your life easier if they departed?
- What changes do you foresee affecting the departments you work closely with wit?
- What is the overall mood across your team and within the company?
- What tasks on your "important but not urgent" list are frequently neglected? Are they still relevant today? What is even more crucial now?
- Which strategies that your company tried but failed at during the previous year were due to what barriers?
- Which strategies has your company successfully executed? What factors contributed to their success?
- If your company developed one critical skill, what would make you a more influential leader?
What insights do the birds in the sky provide that I might overlook?
Taking a bird's-eye view during the end-of-the-year planning process can offer an invaluable, expansive standpoint, allowing you to spot trends and patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. From this high altitude, you can see beyond your immediate concerns and focus. In order to obtain a 360-degree perspective, I urge clients to engage in thought-provoking questions by finding a unique vantage point.
At this 10,000-foot, bird's-eye level, ponder the following questions:
- What shift is commonly overlooked in your industry that concerns you?
- What recent developments about your industry have surprised you?
- What skills are lacking in your group that were not essential two years ago?
- What new companies have infiltrated your industry, targeting which niches?
- What political pressures and opportunities are you currently considering?
- How much time and energy does your team invest in strategic thinking and planning? How would you like to change that?
- What one skill, if you mastered, would make you more adaptive in your company and industry?
Source
Users frequently discover they're investing excess time on ground-level planning, focusing too much on minor details and neglecting valuable insights from higher vantage points, such as the tree line or mountain peak. Regardless, a practical plan is essential at the tactical level. However, before we obsess over arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, we should broaden our perspective enough to prevent us from pointlessly reorganizing ship's furniture, focus on constructing life-saving boats, discovering icebergs early, and even finding iceberg-free navigation methods.
The Exclusive Web Advisory Board is an exclusive membership program specifically for prominent career and entrepreneurial coaches. Am I eligible?
In light of Jo Ilfeld's expertise in optimizing executive team performance at Incite To Leadership, she might provide valuable insights when discussing the importance of refreshing strategic priorities at the start of a new year.
As a member of The Exclusive Web Advisory Board, Dr. Jo Ilfeld could share her thoughts on the 3 pivotal questions to consider before formulating an organization's 2025 strategy, especially in relation to assessing and revising departmental priorities.
