We are at the beginning of a new year, a time we traditionally use to set goals and establish objectives that will guide the company throughout the year. However, those who think that simply putting the first ‘great idea’ that comes to mind will be sufficient are mistaken. On the contrary, to do this correctly, it is necessary to assess the company’s history, starting with the balance sheet of 2024.
I know that saying this may seem a bit obvious, but many companies still do not go through this process. Some managers believe that they should erase the previous year as soon as the break ends and real work begins. Well, from my experience, unless it is a new organization in the market, it makes no sense to pretend that nothing happened before.
You might be wondering: why? The answer is simple: starting everything ‘from scratch,’ ignoring the existence of previous work, eliminates all chances of your business prospering. After all, even if you give up on it and start another company, change fields, or want to do the same work in a different way, you need to understand the past to get it right in the present and ensure a better future.
In this sense, it would be recommended to have a document containing data with the balance from the previous year to understand the current situation of your company, knowing mistakes and successes, as well as knowing where you are doing well and where you need to improve. Without this, it is difficult to know where to go. And as the Cheshire Cat in the classic story Alice in Wonderland would say, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.
However, be aware that ‘any road’ is not a good option when we have a business that we want to grow, especially with employees who depend on us and their jobs. Therefore, using OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – can be a great solution to define the best route at the moment, both for the year and, especially, for the next three months.
Yes, three months are an ideal time, after all, a year nowadays feels like a decade, and OKRs help us a lot to work better with shorter cycles. This way, it will be possible to adjust what went wrong, if necessary, starting to work towards results. And once you set the goals and establish the objectives – short, medium, and long term – to reach these expected results, it will be easier to discover which path you should take.
And remember: it’s okay to admit that the chosen path was not the best or what you expected, these things can happen and are more normal than you think. It is always possible to recalculate the route and go in a new direction. We can make mistakes, but as long as they are new mistakes.
