The Week Business Resolutions Die
In today’s Wall Street Journal an article titled “The Week Resolutions Die” appeared in the Personal Journal section.
According to Facebook research, check-ins of “gym” or “fitness” start off with a bang in January, then significantly drop off in February. It seems the research backs up what we already know. New Year’s resolutions are easy to make, but hard to keep.
Do your business resolutions die in February of every year? Do you go gangbusters in January with all the improvements you will make, only to have them all die on the vine in just one month? I’ll bet your business resolutions are no different than gym resolutions. And what’s worse is your employees know it too. So therefore, whenever you announce the “resolution de jour”, your team will simply ignore them and wait for them to go away.
Dying business resolutions are business killers. They are morale killers. They are motivation killers. Here’s how to avoid them:
- Don’t make resolutions based upon fantasy. Resolve to improve what really needs it and that which can realistically be achieved. Think deeply about resolutions before you declare them.
- Don’t make too many resolutions. It is easy to map out an improvement plan that exceeds the organization’s capacity to achieve.
- Involve your team in the resolutions (alright, I will say it), goal setting process. It is important your team feels a sense of control in their work world. This is one way to give it to them. Besides, I guarantee you’ll come up with better ideas than if you do it alone. And buy-in will be that much easier.
- And here is the heresy-don’t make goals too specific. I know, we’ve all been taught over the years that goals have to be “SMART”-and the S stands for specific. But, according to some new research, people are more likely to achieve goals if they are sketched out in vague terms, than if they are set in stone with a specific target. According to Baba Shiv, a distinguished professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, “For one to be successful, one needs to be motivated.” As a co-author of “In Praise of Vagueness : Malleability of Vague Information as a Performance Booster” he contends on certain occasions, precise information is not as helpful as vague information in boosting performance. It is a fascinating new way to look at an old subject. You can find the entire research at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/6/733.abstract
- Finally, remember the 3 C’s of effective leadership-Communicate, Communicate, and Communicate. Don’t just set resolutions and let people wonder about what happened to them. Keep people in the loop constantly.