My team and I just finished our end-of-the-quarter business review – a look back on the previous three months.  After reflecting, we were shocked to realize all we had accomplished.  Our learnings didn’t stop there.

This Week’s Edition

The first quarter just ended. As a leader, what did you accomplish? What will you accomplish going forward?

Clarify Your Thinking

Most new efforts end within six weeks. Ninety percent of New Year’s resolutions are dead by February 15th. If you are still in the game, what have you accomplished?

As a result of this post-pandemic snap back, the pace of business is increasing leaving me and my team feeling a bit frenetic at times. Recently, we’ve found ourselves asking the following questions:

·      Are we accomplishing things quickly enough?

·      How are all of our projects related?

·      Are we doing the right things to get the results we want?

·      Are we missing anything crucial?

I could sense some uncertainty, hesitation and hints of doubt creeping into our thinking. Many leaders I work with are experiencing similar thinking as things are ramping up and we begin to cross the threshold to the roaring 20’s.

As leaders, in order to accomplish our vision for the year, we’ve got to have clarity in our thinking and crispness in our strategic actions. 

Old Thinking: We don’t have time to pause. We’re not moving fast enough. We’ll just keep working harder and things will work out. I hope.

New Thinking: Let’s pause and take stock of our current track record. We can make tweaks based on new information – where to speed up and where to slow down. 

Thoughts Lead to Actions

Patrick Lencioni, wrote Death by Meeting, which identifies an insightful meeting cadence for teams looking for relief from the barrage of seemingly ineffective meetings. One element Lencioni stresses is the quarterly half-day meeting.

Taking a page out of his playbook, this past week I facilitated a quarterly strategy meeting designed to:

·      Reflect on the previous three months and

·      Review our strategic plan for the next quarter

The team brought to the meeting the list of things they believed we had achieved in Q1 as well as pictures and images that exemplified our achievements. Each person brought different visual items. As they presented their images and described our Q1 performance, it gave us insight into each person’s unique perspective on the work we do.

Our learnings were as follows:

·      We accomplished more than we gave ourselves credit.

·      Each person realized their significant contribution.

·      We saw which projects aligned with our vision and which were off course.

·      We grew in excitement about fulfilling our vision.

·      We uncovered some key strategic insights we would have certainly missed without the reflection time.

Boost Your Performance

Pause the work for three hours. Take time to reflect on Q1.

1.   List your accomplishments for the past three months.

2.   Find pictures and images that represent those accomplishments.

3.   Meet with the team to review the accomplishments.

4.   Remind yourselves what you are striving to achieve.

5.   Make adjustments to your plan as needed.

Put the quarterly review for Q2 on your calendar now. 

What’s Your Opinion?

What have you been able to accomplish in Q1?  Let me know at robin.pou@robinpou.com.

Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!

Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist

If this was helpful, feel free to share it with another leader who needs to defeat doubt and complete their confidence.

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What is “The Confident Leader”?

During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.