We are at the beginning of a new year, a moment when we traditionally set goals and establish objectives that will guide the company's path throughout the year. However, those who think that simply putting the first "big idea" that comes to mind will be enough are mistaken. On the contrary, to do this correctly, it is necessary to evaluate the company's history, starting with the 2024 balance sheet.
I know that saying this may seem a bit obvious, but many companies still do not carry out this process. There are some managers who believe they should wipe the slate clean of the previous year as soon as the recess ends and the real work begins. Well, based on my experience, unless it is a new organization in the market, it makes no sense at all to pretend that nothing happened before.
You must be wondering: why? The answer is simple: starting everything "from scratch," ignoring the existence of prior work, destroys all chances of your business thriving. After all, even if you give up on it and start another company, change fields, or want to do the same work differently, you need to understand the past to get the present right and ensure a better future.
In this regard, the recommended approach would be to have a document containing the data with the previous year's balance, in order to understand the current situation of your company, identifying mistakes and successes, as well as knowing where it is doing well and where it needs improvement. Without that, it's hard to know where to go. And as the laughing cat would say in the classic storyAlice in Wonderland, if you don't know where to go, any path will do.
However, be aware that 'any path' is not a good option when we have a business we want to grow, especially with employees who depend on us and the job. Therefore, using OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – can be a great solution to determine the best course of action at the moment, both for the year and especially for the next three months.
Yes, three months is an ideal amount of time; after all, a year nowadays seems like a decade, and OKRs help us a lot to work better with shorter cycles. In this way, it will be possible to correct what went wrong, if necessary, by starting to work based on results. And once you set the goals and establish the objectives – short, medium, and long term – to achieve these expected results, it will be easier to determine which path you should follow.
And remember: it's okay to admit that the chosen path wasn't the best or that it wasn't what you expected; these things can happen and are more common than you might think. It is always possible to recalculate the route and take a new direction. We can make mistakes, but as long as they are new mistakes.
You are allowed to make mistakes along the way
