New Years Resolutions

by

Do you believe in New Years resolutions? What are yours this year?

I love hearing the responses to these questions. In my oh-so-scientific studies over the years, I’d say most people refuse to make any NY resolutions because of the also-so-scientific-statistical data on NY resolution failure. They think they’ll be happier if they don’t set themselves up for disappointment by setting goals they might not achieve.

I can’t help but think about vision/strategy/goal setting processes in most businesses. Many people object to going through individual goal setting or group strategic planning exercises, usually for one of the following reasons:
1) It is a waste of time because everything gets reprioritized anyway.
2) We don’t want morale to drop if we set goals and don’t achieve them.

Well, I think that’s bunk. However you do it, whenever you do it, setting a vision (or goals or resolutions or whatever you want to call it) is the most surefire way to success. That’s why I’m a strategy consultant. It is why I love facilitating meetings to help people build vision and prioritize objectives. And why I love building those beautiful presentations that help everyone agree on their strategy and get inspired to make it happen. I truly believe for organizations and individuals, getting clear on vision is the key to getting what you want.

I’ve set a lot of goals in my life, personally and professionally. I’ve also missed few of them along the way. But the process of thinking about what I wanted and constantly going for it is what has gotten me where I am today.

Now, I’m in an interesting place.  Last year, I realized so many of my possibilities: success with the company, publishing our book, getting married and having a baby. While in a space of so much gratitude, I am wondering what is next… because I know if I don’t create more vision, I won’t keep moving forward. And I might even move backwards.

I spent some time last week while on vacation thinking about all this and getting it on paper. I won’t go through all the details, but there are a couple goals I wanted to share with you all, my blog readers.

First, I’m re-committing to my social networking goals, beginning with Twitter. Twitter continues to be an area of discomfort and honestly a little skepticism for me, but I am intrigued about its ability to connect us in new ways. I was on and off through last year and I’ve had several people convince me that it is a mind-shift at first, but once you are on, it is a new cool way of being connected. I’m going to treat this one like a 21 day habit and see where it goes from there.

Second, I’m going to be gearing more of my writing and presenting to “impact” – specifically how strategies can impact companies. Impact is TE’s third core value (after the more obvious two of Thought and Ensemble) and even though it is the whole reason we are around, we don’t talk about it enough. I get that not everyone is inspired by strategy, believing that if you build it, success will come. Some people want more real examples We’ve also gotten feedback from Reboot book readers and presentation attendees that while they find the problems laid on in the book compelling and the solutions insightful, but they want more specifics of what to go do and success stories from companies who have had positive impacts.

So there you have it: written down for the world to see.   The closest thing I have to NY resolutions.  Now, time to get to it!

READ MORE

The Magic of Mortals

The Magic of Mortals

Daily we wake up to new developments in automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML). Across sectors and industries, automated solutions prove highly successful in surpassing the capacity of the human brain for certain tasks, improving...

read more
Leveling Up: How to Hone Your Skills at Home

Leveling Up: How to Hone Your Skills at Home

Leaders have been trying to crack the code on talent development for years. Recent studies have shown, however, that strength-focused leadership [read: intentionally elevating the qualities that already come naturally to us] is the clear winner for developing talent...

read more
Fake Case Study: Jack of all trades vs. Master of One

Fake Case Study: Jack of all trades vs. Master of One

  Listen to any earnings call or executive presentation and you will likely hear the terms “top line” and “bottom line.” These are words used to describe a business’s performance. According to Investopedia, the words are defined as follows: Top line refers to the...

read more
Your Personality Is Showing

Your Personality Is Showing

There I was, minding my own business one evening, digging into my organization's SEO performance (as one does), when I came across something interesting. Search terms related to "MBTI" — or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, developed by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel...

read more
Lessons From a Change Manager Who Hates Change

Lessons From a Change Manager Who Hates Change

Hello. My name is Monique, and I’m a change manager who hates change.   After years of receiving “consulting therapy” from various mentors, I am now able to say these words out loud and proudly. But for a long time, it felt more like an admission of guilt. I mean, who...

read more
Creativity as a Cure

Creativity as a Cure

The topic of creative solutioning has been front and center these days as we talk more and more about organizational adaptability in the face of dynamic and uncertain times. For example, I recently read about a project that got me thinking about specific priorities...

read more
Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company — Why Now?

Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company — Why Now?

Big news over here as we close out the year - we have been acquired by Pariveda, a 750-person consulting firm in 12 markets across North America! We are now “Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company” and I’ll be serving as the Managing Vice President continuing to lead...

read more
Thought Ensemble Joins Pariveda Solutions!

Thought Ensemble Joins Pariveda Solutions!

Dallas, December 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Pariveda, a leader specializing in solving complex technology and business problems, announces the acquisition of Thought Ensemble. With the addition of Thought Ensemble, Pariveda now provides holistic business strategy,...

read more
Thoughts on Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

Thoughts on Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

It was about a year ago that we first started hearing about Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (SB19-085) and I knew it was going to be national news. We’d just gotten past the “Rocky Mountain High” jokes, and our lovely state was trying to break new ground...

read more