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1/3, 1/3, 1/3

Many businesses review their performance monthly and quarterly but is this the most effective timetable?

calendarcake

I remember a lesson from Jeff Faulkner, my inspirational Sales Director at Barratt, who used to change the period of focus dependent on the market conditions. In tougher times he’d get us to focus only on monthly goals. In the toughest times this shortened to weekly and occasionally, in extreme conditions, daily. When market conditions improved the emphasis would change to the next quarter but right now I suggest for many businesses it would be appropriate to look at the next third, the last third of this calendar year.

Of course weekly and daily planning should still be a non-negotiable habit, but the unintended consequence of too narrow a focus is the danger of missing out on opportunities that require longer term consideration and implementation. Last week we had our 2 day offsite annual planning session for 2016 and also reviewed our objectives for the next four months as well. The consequence is a range of projects I doubt very much would have seen the light of day if we’d only focussed on the short term necessities.

What might you achieve in the next four months?

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