Three Steps to Growth
Can you believe it’s Thanksgiving already? The end of the year seems to roll around pretty quickly. If you began the year with a resolution, good for you. If you examined your New Year’s goal and built a plan around it, even better. If you took ACTION on that plan, bravo! I’ll bet you saw measurable results this year by applying those three very simple steps: set a goal, plan your effort and take action.
Our team had a SMART Plan this year, and we worked it:
- We redefined the company’s service offering this year. The initiative involved identifying and working with a branding agency to re-brand, learning to build relationships in a new target market and re-tooling our website.
- We completed our transition to the cloud, when we deployed Microsoft Office 365.
- We applied for and received HUBZone and MWBE certifications – affording us opportunity to garner federal, state and local government contracts.
- We realized significant cost savings by re-examining relationships with our vendors and re-evaluating tools and technology we have used for years.
Regrettably, even the best laid plans don’t always materialize in the way we envision. As you take action, you will encounter c-h-a-n-g-e. It’s nasty word, I know. But often, change is coupled with growth. Sometimes that means saying goodbye to long held beliefs, learning new ways of being and doing or risking embarrassment, when you don’t have all the answers.
Scaling Your Business Requires Personal Growth
Through our changes, I learned no matter how many technology tools you have, teams don’t pivot all to themselves. “Managing” change just isn’t enough. We must lead change. To facilitate adoption of any new technology, practice or other change, leaders must embrace new ways of thinking and doing.
In the past six months, I prepared for and passed the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam, did more reading on the subject of social media marketing than I care to name and more importantly, asked for help. With significant travel obligations, I relied heavily on our team to execute in-flight projects successfully. As a result, I marveled at the many flawless ways to “skin a cat” and learned that trust is what solidifies teams, distributed or otherwise.
In retrospect, it feels good; Our lessons learned revealed tangible results. I am thankful to our vendors, partners, clients and most notably, our team for another year of progress. I hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on your year. Perhaps you will find you have changed along the way.
