Every business has traditions. Some, they are aware of. Some, they just subconsciously do. We have a few of those around The Squad. The one I want to share today isn’t unique. I’m quite sure most businesses have some ceremony, action, or event that wraps up the previous year and looks forward to the next.
For us, we’ve consistently celebrated the year together at a festive Christmas party. (Wow – can you believe that was only 4 weeks ago??) We celebrate making it through another year and joyfully relish the season of hope that is Christmas. Then, we wrap up the previous year and share our vision for the upcoming year at a lunch or breakfast each January.
The pace of January is fast around here. Just a few weeks after New Years parties and budgets are coming together and annual plans are translated into quarterly rocks, weekly to-dos, and scorecards to make sure we’re getting traction along the way. We’re serving partner clients, launching projects that carried over, hosting websites, and making new sales. Business as usual.
Here is the problem, though: “Business as usual” can be bad. Just as December is a time of hope and new beginnings, January is the time for us to make sure we are aligned around our Core Values, Vision, Core Focus, Marketing Strategy, and 10 year, 3 year, and 1 year goals.
We have always taken time to wrap the previous year, look at our growth chart, celebrate wins, and acknowledge losses and regrets, but we’ve not always seized the chance to rally around our vision for the future.
Our decision to embrace EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) in 2017 has led to this focus on vision. We need a team of people “on the same page” when it comes to our Vision, Core Focus, and Core Values, in order to achieve traction and for the business to be healthy and smart.
In EOS, the guiding document is known as the V/TO. We’ve attached a version of ours that we share with the public.
Click the image above to view our public VTO
In fact, we’re offering this as a service to companies using EOS. Want to work together to brand these documents for your business and leadership team? Let’s grab coffee if you’d like to chat about it.
This year’s kickoff breakfast happened last week at our office. It was a time where we had some laughs, recapped highlights from 2019, shared some crazy dreams, dug deeper in defining our Core Values, and reminded everyone on our team about where we’re heading in 2020 and beyond through a review of our V/TO and annual goals.
One of my favorite parts of the meeting was defining our Core Values as more than just 8 phrases. We added some points of emphasis under each and told some accompanying stories from our history that either demonstrated us exemplifying or offending that value. In leading this business, I’ve learned over the years that if we succeed or fail, it’s tied directly to our Core Values.
We hire by our Core Values and we lead to them; ultimately, people work themselves on to or off the team based on them. They are not just words on the wall. We recognize and reward our team based on them. They are integral to our current and future success, so they deserved a deeper dive.
If you’d like to see the expanded list of our Core Values, check out the gallery below. [envira-gallery id="5149"]
The last thing we did in our meeting was put the focus back on our team. Ultimately our success as a business is based on their success as individuals and collectively as our team.
We walked through ideas to help each of them cement their goals, dreams, and visions for the future. We asked them to clear their calendars on the first half of Thursday, January 23 to take a clarity break. You might also call this a Desert Day. The goal is to solidify their personal plans for the year and the future.
We’re stoked about the potential in 2020 here at The Squad. We hope you are just as excited about your business growth.
We’d love to hear more about your business culture, core values, and vision.
We’d love to learn more about others in the area operating with EOS.
And, of course, we’d love to talk with you about your next project or a long-term marketing partnership.
We’d love to Tell Your Story and Grow Your Business in 2020!
If we should connect, then let’s do it. I’ll buy the coffee!
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