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The ABC News website claims that about 48% of Americans make a New Year’s resolution. By far, the most common one is to lose weight. Others include eating more healthy food, start exercising, stop smoking, and spending more time with the family. About 23% of resolutions have to do with jobs, business, or getting our finances in better shape.
According to an article published a few years ago by Living on the Up Beat, only 8% of Americans will stick to and achieve their New Years’ resolution. Therefore, 92% will fail. Even more remarkably, 45% will have failed by the end of January. Why? There are many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that many New Year’s resolutions are not deliberate and thought out. Rather, they are hastily made with champagne glasses clinking, as the chimes of midnight are just beginning to fade. Studies show that if your resolution (which is just a festive euphemism for the word goal) is made in advance, well thought out, and if you approach it with seriousness of purpose (i.e. a real plan) chances are far better that as you’re singing Auld Lang Syne as December 2012 fades into obscurity, you will find yourself among the elite 8% - smugly bragging about your resolution success.
Let’s assume you are the Vision Center Department Manager at a large retail chain. There are 15 stores in your district, and for the last few years your department is always near the bottom when it comes to gross sales growth over previous year – a number that upper management really looks to in determining raises, performance evaluations, etc. You resolve to NOT be in the bottom next year. Instead, it is your resolution/goal to be in the top three! Here are four further suggestions to help you achieve that lofty goal.
First, realize you can’t achieve this particular goal on your own.
Involve as many people as you can to help you do it. Schedule a brief meeting for the sole purpose of discussing and establishing the goal. Invite your “independent” optometrist to the meeting. Why? Despite her titular independence, she is a crucial piece in this puzzle, and the first substantive professional contact your patient has. And trust me, much to the chagrin of your state Board of Optometry, from the patient’s point of view, you are all members of the same ECP team.
Additionally, studies show that the doctor recommending things in the exam room make it far more likely the patient will buy them. Remind everyone of your department’s standing over the last few years. Ask everyone to share why he or she thinks you’ve been at the bottom. Ask why they think the other stores are at the top. Share your views as well. After you’ve had a brief discussion on the past, focus on the future. Ask the group if they truly set out to make an improvement, what do they think they could achieve in terms of their standing when compared with the other staffs at the other Vision Centers in the district? If they’re like most people (and trust me they are) they’re likely to claim they could be #1 if they really wanted to. That’s when I’d ask if they think landing somewhere in the top three would be an achievable goal. More than likely they will say yes. By approaching the initial resolution with this level of involvement you have given everyone a true sense of ownership and emotional attachment to the goal.
Second, studies show that if you will Socially Commit to your goal you are more likely to achieve it. Talk to as many people as will listen to your resolution. Tell your family about it around the dinner table. Inform your friends about what you are trying to accomplish. The next time you run in to the store manager, ask him for five minutes of his time, and enthusiastically tell him about the goal that you and your department are working on. Ask him if there is anything he can do to help. This kind of social commitment makes it far more likely that the goal will be achieved as opposed to you making a resolution to improve alone in the dark. Share your resolution with anyone who will listen.
The third thing you need to do is Make Sure Your Goal is a SMART
One. People way smarter than me have discovered that if the goal is comprised of the five elements of the acronym SMART, chances are the goal will be achieved. The letters stand for Specific, Measureable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time-driven. To satisfy these criteria, I wouldn’t end the above-mentioned meeting until an agreement had been reached that crystallizes the goal into a one-or-two-sentence description that includes SMART. For example: “To ensure our place in the Top 3, we resolve to raise our sales by 21% over the last year and do it by December 1, 2012. That is definitely specific and measureable. We could argue whether or not it’s realistic, but we will assume it is. It certainly has the element of time. What’s missing? Actions. This is the most crucial piece of the puzzle. Together with the team, you need to come up with specific actions to help achieve the goal. You have to do different things – things you’ve never done before. Why?
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. And we don’t want that! Maybe you agree to distribute POP (point of purchase) brochures to all your patients. Maybe doc agrees to write suggestions for second pairs on her Rx forms. Whatever seems like it might work…try it.
The fourth and final step is to Keep Track of Your
Progress. But here’s the thing: Do not keep track of the main goal (in this case the sales figures). That takes care of itself. After all, to check on sales all you have to do is probably push a couple of buttons on your computer. You want to really achieve your goal? Keep track of how well you do with regard to the ACTIONS. Create some kind of a scoreboard…a poster…anything…that on a daily basis shows how the team is doing when it comes to achieving and sticking to the agreed upon Actions. For example, if you decided to try the POP approach, keep track of what percentage of patients who came in for an exam received brochures. If you do that for a month, and your scoreboard shows that 91% of patients (Great job by the way) were given some POP, but your monthly sales have not improved over the same month last year, you have discovered that the POP plan is not working. What’s that tell you? Your group needs a new and different action. Measure the new action for a few weeks. Eventually, by keeping track of things in this manner you will discover that some action works better than all others. Redouble your efforts with that particular action and you are well on your way to achieving your New Year’s resolution/goal.
Resolutions are easy and sometimes fun to create, but it takes real planning and effort to achieve them. If you’re willing to try this new approach, perhaps when you hear the tinkling of champagne glasses to welcome in 2013, it will be in celebration of more than just the passing of another year.
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