2018 Resolutions

The month of December is fraught with difficult decisions and an impending awareness that the New Year is right around the corner. We know it’s supposed to be a time of reflection, but who has a second to do that as we rush between holiday events, shop for the perfect gift, or prepare to travel to or host friends and family? Then there’s this thing called hygge, which we’re all supposed to be practicing and sounds amazing, but that might need to be a plan for February… Regardless, it’s hard to be mindful and intentional when there is so much going on!

Organizations are not that much different than people- we set goals to provide us with focus, we get caught up in the day-to-day swirl of decisions and crises, and we rarely make time to reflect on what’s going well and what we need to change. As we get closer to the end of the calendar year, many organizations are beginning to think about next year’s goals and more tactical activities, like setting budgets. It feels like a lot, but not only is it time well-spent, it forces us to shut out the distracting noise of today and focus on a vision of what we want next year to be.

At FMP, we too get caught up in the swirl. We have our holiday party to prepare for (and recover from), our Holiday Sharing event with Alexandria’s Community & Human Services Center for Children & Families, and everyone is pushing to get out client deliverables before we all scatter for the holidays. But in the midst of this, we’re making time to plan for next year, and that led us to consider how similar the process of setting individual resolutions and corporate goal-setting really is. As an individual considers the key resolutions that they think will bring them closer to their personal or professional goals (hygge, maybe?), so too does the organization. For an organization, it might seem like the process is based on metrics (for good cause), but there are a number of ways, large and small, that you could look to improve your organization or the experiences of your employees and customers. In fact, many of the concepts that frequently appear as individual resolutions easily translate to organizations. These concepts might not necessarily boil up to the level of importance to be a performance goal, but instead make for good corporate resolutions.

We spent some time thinking about resolutions that apply to individuals and organizations and came up with a pretty solid list. We’re going to use that list to guide our future content for this blog- ensuring that we not only stay focused on the resolutions that we think will make us a better company (and people!), but that we continually present topics that help others find ways, large and small, to mindfully focus on improvement. Each month, we’ll focus our blog and outreach efforts around these topics (most in no particular order) and share information, best practices, and the tips and techniques that we use at FMP to apply these concepts. Our list includes-

All of these concepts are reflected in FMP’s culture and many are part of our defined values. That said, we know we can all do a better job focusing on these practices. Considering these as our resolutions for 2018 will help us ensure that, as a company and individuals, we stay focused on things that we think will make us better throughout the year. And, if we nail a few of these things along the way, maybe we’ll find we have time to practice hygge?

To learn more about FMP’s capabilities, visit our website or email BD@fmpconsulting.com.

To reach out to the authors directly, feel free to email jmilloy@fmpconsulting.com.