Happy New Year! Welcome to 2014.
What is your New Year’s Resolution? Growth? Better marketing? Increased productivity?
The New Year is a great time for a fresh start. It is a time for re-examining your organisation and fresh business thinking. It is a chance to approach new goals with a renewed energy and focus.
Wouldn’t it be great if, rather than dreading returning to work for another year, your team came into the office in January with optimism and excitement about the year ahead?
Apathy and frustration can spread quickly amongst your team, and if it doesn’t die with the ending of the year, make sure it doesn’t make it into the office in January. If 2013 ended with any despondency or disengagement among your team, the New Year is a perfect time to inject positivity and culture change amongst their ranks.
Discuss openly with your team how everyone feels about the previous year, its successes and failures, areas for improvement and areas where you got it just right.
Promote Responsibility
Get your team taking ownership of the coming year, and making resolutions of their own, such as ‘I will work smarter.’ ‘I will make myself irreplaceable. ‘I will evaluate my personal contribution to the organisation.’
After all, responsibility for the success of your organisation doesn’t fall on the leader’s shoulders alone. Ask them to identify areas where they feel improvements could be made in 2014, both on a personal and organisation level. Encouraging your team to take part in a fresh start is key to involvement.
Re-affirm Your Mission
The New Year is a great chance to reinvigorate your team’s excitement for the company vision and common goals, when they are fresh and rested, and have had time to recover from any disengagement or disillusionment from the previous year.
Be Objective
Take the opportunity to look at your organisation objectively. Could you make any improvements? Are there members of your team that need to reconnect with the company mission? Is there an area, in particular, that could benefit from a fresh injection of New Year enthusiasm?
Make involvement your New Year’s resolution, fill the new year with positive energy, and 2014 will be your best year yet!
For any more information on how to make 2014 the year your team becomes fully involved, get in touch!