Run Your Quarter like a CEO
What can the beginning of a season or the beginning of a quarter mean for you and your mindset? If you think about the beginning of the year, often that we have this idea of a fresh start and a new chance to start things. We might have big goals for our life or for our business or for our job and full of fresh energy. But sometimes when we think about this as just happening once a year, it can easily fall down the slippery slide and we come to the end of the year feeling like we're just holding on. What today's episode is about running your quarter, like a CEO. Which means having a look at the quarter that's ahead. Doing a check-in of what has been and what's to come and how to use this final quarter the most effectively leading you into the year 2023.
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Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] We are on the home stretch. Can you believe we're about to hit into the fourth quarter of the year 2022. A little fun fact, September 1st actually marks the beginning of spring in Australia. Our seasons go from the beginning of the month, not by the Equinox. So come September first, things are starting to get warmer in Australia. Although, I must say, depending where you live in Australia, it can be warm pretty much year round.
[00:00:30] So what can the beginning of a season or the beginning of a quarter mean for you and your mindset? If you think about the beginning of the year, often that we have this idea of a fresh start and a new chance to start things. We might have big goals for our life or for our business or for our job and full of fresh energy. But sometimes when we think about this as just happening once a year, it can easily fall down the slippery slide and we come to the end of the year feeling like we're just holding on. What today's episode is about running your quarter, like a CEO. Which means having a look at the quarter that's ahead. Doing a check-in of what has been and what's to come and how to use this final quarter the most effectively leading you into the year 2023.
[00:01:18] The idea of an annual plan seems a little bit outdated, although it's great to have annual goals. If we're not checking in on them regularly, it's easy to deviate from these. And if the last few years have told us anything, Adaptability is key in a business.
[00:01:35] So today's episode, I'll be talking about two different things. One as a leader, how do you run your quarter? Like a CEO. And how do you do a check-in with your team? And secondly, how to run the quarter, like a CEO for yourself.
[00:01:49] Firstly, let's start with how to do a quarter with your team as a check-in. Some people will have an annual review process, and sometimes that review gets done and then put into a drawer. Other people will talk more regularly to their team. I like to encourage the idea of doing it quarterly. The reason being is you have an opportunity to make sure that things are on track from your quarterly goals, adapt them if they're not. But also if things aren't quite going to plan, you have more opportunities to get back on track. So it's better as leader to be able to do a lot of small tweaks than to have to do one or two big ones at the end of the year.
[00:02:30] The things I would recommend doing as a quarter check-in with your team, is to pull out their annual plan and if they don't have one that's okay it's a great time to have this conversation. First you want to review the plan and review the last quarter. So the goals, numbers, people in your team, and seeing where that sitting in relation to your plan. Then focus what is going to be the priority for this quarter? This final quarter of 2022. Sometimes we will try and fit everything in the final quarter. Sometimes people feel that they're at a loss, they're never going to reach the goal, so why bother anyway? Neither of them are great ways to go about it. I would highly recommend choosing a couple of priorities and working out an action plan to reach those priorities.
[00:03:16] A tip if you are, the leader is to let the team member drive the conversation. So let them have the form that has got the information and get them to check in on how are they going with their goals. It's much better if they are the one running this conversation versus you running the conversation, sort of reduce the chance of it micromanaging, but it also engages them in the process.
[00:03:40] So for yourself, how do you run your own quarter like a CEO? Well, the process is quite similar. I have a check-in to think how did you go in the last quarter? Were you happy with the things that you achieved? What were your goals in relation to the year and the quarter? That's just been.
[00:03:56] Then have a look at "well, if this is where I'm at now, where do I want to be for the next quarter?" And pick a couple of goals. I often recommend only having two, maybe three main goals. Because three months goes very quickly and it's better to focus your energy rather than disperse it.
[00:04:15] I have two different types of clients that I do this type of check-in with. One is an annual client where each quarter we will then have a check-in on "okay what was your plan for the year? How are we going with that? What was your plan for the last quarter? How are we going with checking in on those goals and what do you want to happen for the quarter ahead?". We use it as a stock take. Sometimes I find that people aren't so great at also acknowledging the wins that they've had. So this is an important part of the process as well.
[00:04:44] The other type of client, I have runs on a quarterly cycle. So I do quarterly leadership, mentoring or coaching, and those three months we start with setting goals, we meet fortnightly and then we close it off at the end. For those clients, it's a 90 day sprint. Often we'll have one or two key things that we're focusing on. And during that 90 days, we kick off with a 90 minute strategy session of which if that person has a manager, the first 30 minutes will be with that manager or the triangulation session, which is really about getting the manager to share what their idea of the goals are. And then I work solely with the client or with the employee for the rest of the sessions. If it's someone with their own business, there's no need to have that triangulation session. We do the first 90 minutes just on their strategy. From there, we do a Leadership Profile and there's a few different tools you might use depending on what their goals are. It might also include a 360 of their team. From here, we meet fortnightly for an hour session going through what their goals and strategies are.
[00:05:46] In these sessions, we normally focus on three things or two of the three things. One is Strategy. A lot of people don't know how to lead because it's not something that we're taught. So what's the strategy in place for being a leader of their business. Whether they're the CEO of the business, or they're stepping into that CEO role. Or if they're stepping into a leadership role within a bigger business. The second is Education about positive psychology and leadership and technical tools on how to be a great leader. And the third is Accountability, how to support them, to be able to fulfill the goals that they've set. So during this 90 day sprint, we meet fortnightly and at the end we have another triangulation session if they do have a leader to join in, or we have a final session where we wrap everything up.
[00:06:33] Also included is access to the Leadership Vault of tools in mini courses to make sure this person has everything they need to make this 90 day sprint.
[00:06:40] So coming into September, I will be opening up for new clients to join for the 90 day power sprint. And this will be the last time I'll be taking one-on-one clients until March of 2023. So have you been thinking about one-on-one leadership coaching or mentoring now is your opportunity to jump in. There'll be a link in the show notes if you'd like to book a 20 minute call with me to find out if it's going to be a good match for you. And also in link to find out a little bit more about this 90 day quarter program.
[00:07:12] Some of the people that are currently clients of this program are small business CEOs, corporate executives, a high school principal. an entrepreneur. And industries can span from technology, education, marketing, engineering, construction, and medical. So there's a wide variety of people that are really keen to enhance their leadership.
[00:07:32] And the reason that leadership is so important that the better you become at being a leader, the easier your life becomes because you become a better delegator, your team is more engaged and more effective and everybody works better together.
[00:07:46] So as we roll into September, do you have a think about what are the goals that you would like to hit for the final quarter of 2022, and making it a productive one for you, which doesn't necessarily mean fitting everything in it means fitting the right things in.
[00:08:03] If this has been useful for you, I would love it if you could share it with one person, because we could all do with being a 1% better leader. Thanks for listening.
