Grant Leboff: Pete, one of the things you do in your book is, towards the end, you talk about what one can do in the next 12 months to really move forward to make progress. I think that’s one of the challenges often people have. Everything is so overwhelming and where to start? If someone is sitting today and they’re like, “I want to have a much better next 12 months,” what are the things they can do to start? Where should they start?
Pete Wilkinson: Okay, they need to start with their time. The next 12 months really is about a review, you’re carrying out a review. Put some time aside to review yourself, where you are. The first thing is your time. By that I mean review what you do with your time. Be honest about where your time is going. Are you doing tasks that really aren’t serving you? Are you wasting time on projects or networking meetings or relationships that just aren’t serving? Review your time.
The next thing I think you need to do is review your products. By that, whether you’re a service business or a physical business, review the products. Do you have the right suite of products to deliver the performance you want next year? Re-review what you’re producing.
The next thing you need to think about is review the message. What message are you going to be communicating next year? What is it about? How do you want to strengthen the message? What do you want to take away from the message?
After you’ve reviewed all those, then you need to think about reviewing your people. Those are the people in your team, either virtual people, or physical people on your payroll. Review, if you’re in a multi-million pound business, review your senior team. Is the senior team the right senior team for the next stage of development for the next 12 months?
I think what you have to do is spend some time to review, because what we don’t want to do is start the next 12 months with a thing called “revert to type,” where you take some action, you build your vision, you have your action plan, you get all motivated, and then you just go back to the old you, which maybe doesn’t have the same sort of thinking that you need to get to the next stage. Avoid reverting to type. Avoid the routine and the habits you built up. Some people drive to work the same way every day and often to go through a junction thinking, “I hope that light was on red or green, because I can’t remember it.” We’re into routines. The purpose of this, if you’re going to have a fantastic next 12 months, you need a pause, to get your compass bearings, and review. Review your time, review your product, review your message, and review your people. Make adjustments where necessary.
Grant Leboff: Then is it about … Obviously do your review, is it looking for the gaps? Is that the point?
Pete Wilkinson: You’re identifying what’s working. You’re identifying what’s not. We spoke earlier about having a to-do list and a not-to-do list. It would be great if you did nothing else other than have your review for the next 12 months and list 3, 4, maybe 5 things that you’re not going to do. You’re not going to go to every networking event, whether it’s going to serve you or not. You’re not going to get dragged to every meeting unless you know what actions are going to come out of it. You’re not going to check email 25 times a day. I mean people, Grant, are checking email first thing in the morning, while they’re still horizontal!
That’s just not effective.
What we’re saying is identify the gaps, look for places where you can make some slight adjustments because we’re not talking about revolutionary stuff here. We’re talking about the compound effect of just small adjustments for you to grow to become the very best version of you. The next 12 months is a great time frame to do that.
Grant Leboff: Ultimately, for some of this it’s just about awareness isn’t it? By going through that review process you just make yourself aware of things that, I think, often people just … They’re just getting on with life … They just miss.
Pete Wilkinson: They just miss. A funny thing, tat has popped into my head at the moment, is a client I had who worked at home, a really high-level consultant. We did a full analysis of time in the review, reviewing the time. It transpired that when they’re working at home, it sounds funny, but they’re moving their cat, their pet cat off their lap, the equivalent of 40 minutes a day. Everyone will laugh at this, but it was stroking the cat, putting the cat down, getting the cat a little bit of a treat, putting the cat in the room out in the conservatory. It sounds ludicrous, but this person was really motivated, really focused, but was losing 40 minutes a day working from home. If they did a 5 day work week at home, they’re losing nearly half a day, which is crazy. You might think, “That wouldn’t be me,” but I bet there’s the equivalent of that in the office.
The next 12 months
I bet there’s the thing you’ve fallen into. Whether it’s that 20 minute conversation by the coffee machine every morning that doesn’t serve you and before you know it, it’s 10:00. Doing these reviews is about being aware of the message, the people, the products, the time and just makes sure that it’s setting yourself up for success, Grant. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Set yourself up for success. Look at the next 12 months and just think, “Okay, let’s review these key areas and make sure they’re all serving me.” If they aren’t, make adjustments.
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