“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning,” Winston Churchill once said. That’s a great mantra for CEOs, particularly this time of year. How nice would it be to spend the holidays reassured that you’ve got a playbook in place for 2018?
Here are four high-priorities areas to think through.
1. Do a postmortem on 2017.
Good CEOs are constantly observing and taking away lessons from their team’s wins and losses. Answer these questions about this year, being as brutally honest as possible.
- What were the organization’s 3 biggest accomplishments this year?
- How can we capitalize on the strengths that led to those successes?
- What were the organizations 3 biggest failures/misses this year?
- What were the root causes, and how can we address them next year?
For even more insight, discuss these questions with your executive leadership team and record the top answers.
2. Get your priorities straight.
Cure organizational ADHD by getting crystal-clear on strategic priorities for next year. Some steps to take:
- Answer these 10 questions to ensure your strategy is coherent.
- Translate strategy into a small list of priorities for the year.
- Working off these strategic priorities, create 4-6 specific goals for Q1 of 2018. These should be SMART goals. Look at your final goal set and ensure that each area of the organization will be able to contribute somewhere.
If you need a jump-start on writing your goals, see these Example Goals and Measurements for each area of the business.
3. Check your talent capabilities.
The human capital in your organization is so critical that CEOs are foolish not to take an active role in evaluating and growing it. Ask yourself:
- Do we have the right leadership team in place? If not, what will we do about that?
- What strategic hires might we need to make in 2018?
I also recommend:
- Scheduling a meeting with your head of HR to discuss high-level talent metrics.
- Planning to invest in training for middle and frontline managers, or at the very least circulating a guide on Management Fundamentals.
- Planning to benchmark employee engagement in January using a tool like Gallup’s Q12 survey. This will highlight specific areas for you and the executive team to work on in 2018.
4. Plan for your own development as a leader.
Most CEOs I know took the reins of their organization without much preparation for the specific demands of the role. And the best CEOs I know are committed to continuous improvement of their own leadership and management skills. I recommend:
- Reflecting on your personal successes and failures as CEO last year.
- Privately asking each of your board members for two areas in which you could improve.
- Translating those improvement notes into action items.
- Making a short list of development activities in 2018 that you will commit to. Consider writing down books to read, people to meet with, groups to join, and events to attend.
I can tell you from personal experience that covering these areas now will pay great dividends in the coming year. You’ll sleep a little easier, relax a little more over the holidays, and feel empowered as you lead your organization into a new year.
You can also download a workbook that covers these areas and more here.