This is the time of year many of us are looking back at last year long enough to look at adjustments in the new year with the intention of more favorable results. Recapping helps us gain perspective on what our prospective year can look like.
The words prospective and perspective are often interchanged with one another yet are not at all the same. You might have prospective new employees, clients, and projects. Those responsible for the business development within a construction or real estate development organization know all too well that a pursuit list and a project award list rarely, if ever, mirror one another at year’s end.
Perspective is your or others’ particular attitude toward or regarding something and is often referred to as someone’s “point of view.” Companies that take time to prepare a go-no-go for their business development and sales efforts tend to gain valuable perspective as to what the team agrees to pursue when hunting for prospects. If it doesn’t match the go-no-go, the time and effort spent pursuing a lead not within other decision makers’ perspectives can create dissension and, ultimately, and relationships.
Overall, business and workplace challenges we faced in the year gone by may be generally the same in the upcoming year, yet how you navigate those challenges is what determines the outcome to be better or not a year from now. Making time in the first quarter of the year to gain perspective and set a new course of action is a choice. A few good ways to gain perspective for a better prospective year are:
- Select one thing you can do differently starting now that brings value to others and ultimately will benefit you. It could be as simple as adjusting your schedule to accommodate others on your team or your attitude toward something you are required to do, whether reluctantly or negatively. Suggestions? Does an OAC, subcontractor, team meeting, etc. need to be moved to allow others to better prepare or attend? Last year we moved our AHOD (all hands on deck) meeting from first thing Monday morning to Monday afternoons. Preparation and participation improved.
- Learn one thing new about yourself that you can apply to the workplace. Patrick Lencioni, The Five Behaviors author and coach, has a new book and assessment out called The 6 Types of Working Genius to help you discover your working genius. Have you ever wondered why some things in the workplace come so naturally to you and others suck the life out of you? This assessment will help you gain perspective as to why.
- Ask for feedback and help. Two are better than one, especially when you seek confirmation on the feedback and advice you receive before acting on it. When you have confirmation, be sure to act on it, yet do so while intentionally preserving the relationships built to this point. Too often, I interview people who resign from a company at the advice of another who has forewarned them to do so. If they had stayed, they would have recognized the changes were to their advantage, and the other person’s situation was independent of their own. In the same way, others don’t listen and find themselves surprised when they are out of a job and blame others despite a fair warning they could have looked into.
Your prospective for the new year typically will involve spiritual, financial, intellectual, career, health and well-being, family, and social and relational goals. Gaining personal perspective through a recipe of adding value to others, gaining insight about yourself, and reaching for help when you need it—combined with taking time to let it cook for confirmation before acting—will turn out a recipe to follow as a tradition when the calendar turns for years to come.
To Your Prospective with Perspective!
Happy New Year,
Suzanne Breistol
