January 2, 2007
It’s another definition for “resolution”: the note or chord to which the harmony moves when progressing from dissonance to consonance. This is not exactly what we think about when we, either formally or in the back of our mind, set some New Year’s Resolutions. What we mean to do is make a firm decision to do something; set a goal and achieve it. For most people the resolve wears off quicker than the smoke dissipates from a five dollar fireworks cone.
I decided to circumvent the trauma this year with the following goals:
I resolve to buy pants that are too large for me so I feel like I am losing weight.
I resolve to strive to always watch Sunday night football.
I resolve to learn how to use the feature on our TV that will allow me to watch two basketball playoff games at the same time.
I resolve to not learn a foreign language in 2007.
I resolve to file an extension for my tax return this year.
I resolve to flick only during commercials and when I am bored.
I resolve to load my dishes into the dishwasher after dinner. (Discussion question: is this in the list because I already do it or is it here because I finally learned something after 28 years of marriage?)
One year from December 31 I intend to look back and review my performance based on these resolutions. I’ve got a pretty good feeling about my upcoming successes. I think its going to be a good year.
It’s about this time that a lot of businesses go through similar exercises: setting goals and budgets for the upcoming year. There is no shortage of helpful information about how to set goals. A little “googling” will show you how to set S-M-A-R-T goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, tangible) or BHAGS (pronounced “bee-hags”): Big Hairy Audacious Goals —a term coined by authors Jerry Porras and James Collins in their book Built to Last. This is important work.
In our firm we coach companies to help every employee draft personal performance goal statements based on and supportive of the overarching company goals for the year. To be worthwhile, this process takes a lot of time, effort, and thought. It is the heavy lifting at the beginning of the year that empowers people to appraise themselves against a powerful performance metric: their own goals or resolutions. It takes skill to write a personal performance goal statement that correctly describes success for targets that don’t involve numbers. “We need to improve morale.” Good. How will you know when you are successful? How to do this is not the point of this column. We’ll save that for another day.
Here is the point. In my opinion organizations share responsibility to make sure every employee is being developed professionally every year. Every personal performance goal statement should include a professional development objective. We should not read or hear about employees who, after 20 years of service, cannot type or turn on a computer.
They are surely awesome employees and wonderful people. But the world is changing. It is to an organization’s advantage to make sure their most precious resource is learning and growing every year. To formalize that process with written professional development goals for all employees would surely be a New Year’s Resolution worth keeping.
