Are you and your team ready for 2023? If you are asking yourself this question, I have some bad news for you. 2023 is already here. In fact, we are nearly halfway through January. The clock waits for no one. Time is the one universal truth and constraint that we all face each day. No matter how great you are you are still only given 24 hours in a day; 7 days in a week; and 12 months in a year.
I do hope that you managed to take some time off during the holiday season. It is important to rest, recover and reset for the year ahead. Now, here is your wake-up call. If you want 2023 to be your most successful year yet, it is time to hit the ground running. It is time to put some clarity into your planning for the year ahead. What will success look like? What will you and your team achieve this year that your future self will be proud of? How will you maximise your impact as a leader? How will you maximise your impact as a team?
Clarity
As we start a new year it is a great time to focus on providing clarity of purpose with your team. If you have a powerful purpose statement and a clear direction, it is the perfect time to pull your team together and remind, refresh and reset (if necessary) on where you are heading as a team and why it is important.
If you do not have a clear purpose and direction, now is the time to develop one. Before your team start drifting on what they think is the right direction, pull the team together and focus on alignment of purpose.
In the powerful words of Ivan Misner, founder of BNI Global if you and your team are all rowing in the same direction you can dominate any industry. It is time to find that clarity and alignment of purpose.
Values
The start of the year is also a wonderful time to refresh your values and set expectations around behaviours and culture. It is our values that drive our behaviour and sets the culture in the business. This becomes acutely true when times start to get tough.
Before we get too far into the "heat of the battle" in 2023 take the time to discuss your core values with your team and what it means for them. This will set you up for success as you navigate the tricky waters that 2023 has in store for us all.
Beliefs
An important step that many teams miss in their planning and goal setting is to not think about why the plan won't work. What are the obstacles that might be down the track? How will you respond to avoid or navigate around that obstacle? What are the things that are in your control that you can manage? What are the things that are out of your control and what can you do to work around them?
Do you have limiting beliefs as a team? Limiting beliefs kill more dreams than failure ever did, but when you address your limiting beliefs you can achieve almost anything.
As you start the year, hold space for your team and give them the psychological safety to discuss limiting beliefs, obstacles, and issues that may be holding you back. Have a deep and honest dialogue and address the "elephant in the room". Once these limiting beliefs are on the table you can start to challenge them. Are they true? What can you do? What is in your control that allows you to move past them.
The key point is that you ignore limiting beliefs at your peril. Get them on the table and discuss them openly.
Priorities
If you say that "everything" is your highest priority, then "nothing" is your highest priority. Take the time to work as a team and work what are the real priorities for 2023. Identify 3 - 5 game changing things that will shape whether 2023 is truly impactful.
From those 3 - 5 priorities start challenging yourself with question like "what would need to be true for those priorities to be achieved?" From this question you can start planning out your goals for the year and allocate them month by month or quarter by quarter.
With these priorities in place, you and your team can reflect on them daily, weekly and monthly. Give yourself and an honest scorecard on whether you are staying true to those priorities or allowing yourself to get distracted by noise. It is a team that remains focused and avoids distractions that make a real impact on the world.
Engage, Empower, and Energise
Every day is a great day to engage, empower, and energise your team. Nothing could be more true than working on your clarity, value, beliefs, and priorities. My key advice to you is not to do all of this alone. Do not sit in your office with the door closed mapping all of this out. As a leader, bring your team together and involve them in the entire process. You will be pleasantly surprised with their inputs and thoughts. Most importantly, when the team feel like they were involved they will take extreme ownership of the results. In the words of Brendon Burchard "people support what they create".
Free Masterclass - Relaunch; Refresh; Rebuild Your Leadership Team in 2023
I am excited to tell you about a Free Masterclass that the amazing Eric Miller of Lighthouse Group is hosting on Thursday 19th June at 12pm (Sydney time)
If you would like to go deeper into practical things that you can do to set your team up for success in 2023, then you do not want to miss this.
In registering for the event, you will also receive a copy of Eric's High Performance Teams Ebook and a self-assessment that you can do in preparation for the masterclass.
You can register here - https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqdO2uqj4iHNRAkVycn6yMtSygU5rxJKLf
Finally, I hope that 2023 brings you, your team and your loved ones great success, abundant joy, and good health.
