New Year, New Goals

It's that time of year - the time for reflection on what went well last year, what didn't, and what you want to drive towards this year. Personally, this often comes in the form of New Year resolutions, resolutions to {finally} exercise, or totally change our diet, or dedicate more personal time to meditation or prayer or to family. Professionally, this is in the form of measurable targets, time-bound metrics, and always in the form of growth.

I spent some time talking about building professional goals with my team today and one of the comments on the call was that it would be helpful if I shared my goals with the team so that they could work on goals that could ultimately roll up to mine - at least at an organization level. So, I thought I would write a blog about both the structure that I try to use for writing goals - as well as what some of my own goals are personally this year.

First, the structure - IBM has a goals system called Checkpoint where we are asked to measure our team across five categories: Business Results, Client Success, Responsibility to Others, Innovation, Skills; as I work on personal and professional goals (and my to do list for the week), I sometimes break this into Business (aka my business that I lead), Deals, Team, and Personal. Across each of these areas, I like to create "umbrella" goals for the year for each category and then quarterly goals for each umbrella goal. For example, in responsibility to others, one of my goals is improving the engagement of my team as measured by IBM's annual employee engagement survey; the quarterly goals are specific actions that I am taking to drive that umbrella goal. I started doing this because so often, it's hard to predict where we will be 9-12 months from now; and so often, we only do goals once a year and don't reset and adjust throughout the year -- and I think this process helps drive both.

So, what are my goals this year on a personal and professional level?

• Celebrate the wins- 2018 was a pretty amazing year for me and I'm sure that 2019 will be as well. People talk about how amazing it is to be a parent and how much you love your kids; but it's hard to put into words how incredible it is to watch someone else discover the world. One thing that totally kills me is how much Charlie loves to be clapped for. A "yayyyyyy Charlie" is sure to elicit a great big smile and Charlie clapping for herself.
  
  I recently realized - I never clap for myself (literally or figuratively).
  
  However, when I initially started reflecting on my year, I wrote down a lot of things that I want to do better or differently - and didn't spend much time on what I want to continue, embolden, enhance. I think a lot of women do this. Someone I work with just got a VERY cool new role, and started the conversation with how worried she was about leaving the team / transitioning. Another friend, who is a working mom, was talking about how hard work and balancing family has been recently and how she was worried she wasn't being as sharp in meetings. We aren't good at taking the time to revel in our successes - it feels uncomfortable. It feels like bragging. It's easier to be hard on ourselves about all the things are aren't good at. I want to be more purposeful about taking time to revel in my own successes - and also the successes of those on my team.
  
  
• Nix the guilt - This is pretty tied into #1. If I take a step back, I do think that I am doing a good job at my role. I think I've added some good structure for my team, I think that I'm driving growth for my business, I think I am helping to develop the people who work for me in a meaningful way. Personally, I feel like I've done a better than expected job with my work / life balance. When I'm home, I routinely pick Charlie up between 4:30 and 5 (something I never expected to be able to do prior to having her) and though I sometimes (often) have to be on call while I am getting her / getting her home, I spend some good quality time with her each afternoon. I do travel, I can't get out of that with my job, but I've done a good job of balancing the travel with being home and successfully have set my own boundaries better than I have ever done before.
  
  With that, the one thing that I have absolutely NOT done a good job at is getting rid of guilt in my life. Despite all of these positive things that I just said about myself, I feel a ton of guilt about the things I'm not doing. I feel guilty about where I'm not spending my time. I feel guilty that I can't do more in person meetings with my team (which would require me to adjust my travel schedule). I have recently been spending more time focused on one part of my business than another area, and I feel like I'm not doing enough to grow the other part of my business.
  
  I have GOT to stop this. I wish I could totally delete paragraph 2 of this bullet and just stick with paragraph 1. I need to move beyond what I could and should be doing because I am CHOOSING this (for example, I COULD work more at night). I am where I am, and I'm doing a good job - I need to recognize the guilt I feel, put it aside, and move on.
  
• "Delegate for success" - The answer to #2 is probably delegation. One of my favorite clients used to say this phrase all of the time - and so I smiled when I wrote it. However, while I'm smiling - delegating is something that my boss has been pushing on me a lot and is something I am working on but not quite there with. Or, I'm getting better at the delegation piece, but not necessarily the trusting that the delegation means that I don't need to be present too. So, right now, I'm delegating in some areas and feeling guilty; not delegating in others and feeling like I'm not doing enough; and not delegating in others and actually not doing anything. The challenge with delegating is that you have to give something a bit of structure to successfully delegate it - and then you need to give it a bit of time to keep it moving. I need to spend A LOT of time on delegating this year, because having a strong team with clear roles who knows what direction they are headed will be key for a smooth transition when I go out on parental leave. So - this is a major work in progress for me.
  
  
• Be present - A couple of years ago, I did a survey with my team on the project that I was leading and asked for feedback about myself. One of the things that was said is that I often multitasked in meetings and therefore did not (a) make the person who I was meeting with feel valued and (b) did not add as much value as I could because I was only half there. The challenge I have with this is one of meeting / time / calendar management - when I am in meetings from 8-5 most days and when I try not to work while I am having family time at night - there doesn't leave a lot of time for me to actually DO my own work. Being present is also something that I am working on personally with Charlie - it's easy to glance at my phone or scroll on instagram while Charlie is playing; but that is not the example that I want to set for Charlie. It is signaling to her that I am bored with her. So my goal here is to be more present throughout my day and to enable myself to be more present by blocking chunks of time on my calendar for work in advance.