So – approaching a topic I mentioned previously, I wanted to make a couple quick observations about 2014 planning. Everywhere in Corporate America, productivity takes a dip over the holidays (starting with Thanksgiving, culminating at New Year’s). There’s no avoiding that. What is interesting is how quickly people try to get back from 0-60 MPH right after 1/1. Perhaps this is why the volume of my posts has subsided in the last couple weeks. I’m totally fine with everyone having the “uh oh” moment realizing how much was supposed to kick off 1/1, but I still felt compelled to document some of my observations in the interim:
- I think as people wrap up a year – there should be an extended blackout on activities such that nothing kicks off in earnest until 1/15
- I realize this may be delaying the inevitable (turning the third week in January into the firestorm that is usually reserved for the first/second), but strongly feel that overloading everyone in the first full week after the holidays is useless because everyone is still mentally in vacation mode
- Having to rework any of the items you half-mindedly try to tackle over the holidays into the first week of the new year is a huge risk and I see it happen far too often; and, you know how much I dislike rework 🙂
- For a lot of people, “sorting through mail” is a huge chore; that’s not to say that people shouldn’t be better at it – but we really need to be aware of the fact that it will take many people at least one full week to get back to even 80% up to speed on activities (so please, stop the “Did you see my note?” discussions – nobody likes those pests… I really feel like we all have an opportunity to be smarter about how you approach people in this limbo period)
- As far as financial activities go, professional services firm have an all out blitz on cash collection approaching 12/31, so we need to be mindful of overflow cash collection that happens in January and not immediately start grilling people for January collections on 2014 work; surely people in finance can be smarter about setting realistic expectations and navigating the year end better (even though I wholly agree that the burden needs to be shared by front-line and their role needs to be clearly communicated so they can share that insight with the buyers)
- It all comes back to project planning; I don’t want to say that we should expect no work to get done between Thanksgiving and 1/15 (that’s just not realistic) – but sequencing activities so that some of the more tactical items can be accomplished in this time frame would be of best benefit (nobody wants to have the mega strategy session of the century with half of the leaders/stakeholders on Christmas Eve – as “great” of an idea as it sounds to “get it knocked out before kicking off the new year”)
I could go on all day, but wanted to share some of these thoughts in the short term since we’re all undoubtedly stuck in the rat race to get 2014 activities underway ASAP.
Til Next Time,
Michael