I really love this time of year. The lull that we have around the holidays gives me the chance to reflect on the previous year and set my sights on the great opportunities that lie in the year ahead. Plus, there’s something so refreshing about having a whole year spread out before me with nothing but possibilities! January is a time for setting goals for myself and for my business. It gives me direction and helps me stay aligned with my mission and vision (I have a personal mission and vision as well as for my business.). Read more...
Remember the scene from the movie A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson’s character shouted from the witness stand, “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”? I often feel like shouting that myself. There are so many times I face off with leaders who want us to come in, wave the magic wand, and fix their patient satisfaction scores rather than facing the truth about the underlying culture that is at the root of poor patient satisfaction. Read more...
What goes up must come down, right? This indisputable law has been regarded as a hard, fast fact for hundreds of years, but it doesn’t have to apply to your patient satisfaction scores. Just because your scores go up, doesn’t mean they have to fall again. And on the flip side, just because they go up, doesn’t mean they’ll stay up.
I was recently chatting with a client about what it takes to sustain positive change and I was shocked to realize how many leaders assume that positive changes aren’t sustainable. Read more...
I love this time of year – the little lull right before the new year gets underway. It’s a time for me to reflect, regroup and re-energize. A whole new year stretches out before me, holding promises of great things to come. At the same time, I am putting closure on the year that is behind me. This brief period is a great time to reflect on where I’ve been and, at the same time, plan for where I am heading. Over the past week, I have spent hours purging my office of clutter created by old papers, books and periodicals to make room for the great opportunities ahead. I’ve taken time to look back over my journals, the goals I had set for myself one year ago and celebrate accomplishments.
Setting goals is one of the basic tenets of good business, but are equally valuable in our personal lives. Each of us owes it to ourselves to set personal and professional goals to give us direction, structure and a compass to the future. Unlike the New Year’s resolution that runs the risk of obsolescence within days, goals can be set in such a way that you are much more likely to succeed. Here are just a few questions that I ask myself when setting goals.
•Is this goal aligned with core values?
•Is it SMART? (specific, measurable, attainable and time-worthy)
•Is it compelling enough to engage others?
•What roadblocks might keep me from achieving this goal?
•How will I keep the goals front and center throughout the year?
By running my goals through this checklist, I am able to put them in context of my life so that I have a better chance of success.
So what are your goals for 2010? I’ve got some big ones. Stay tuned for some exciting changes.
