Secure Greater Success with the Quarterly, 12-Week Approach

Written By Tamara White

Would you like to leverage more of your potential and perform at your best, by using a new approach?  What if you could take back control of your days while accomplishing your goals in record time?

In last week’s newsletter, my partner Kelly White shared her thoughts and approach to setting yearly goals.  Most leaders have or are in the middle of 2023 annual planning and goal setting.  I recently read “The 12 Week Year” written by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington.  Sensing a strong connection to last week’s newsletter, I wanted to share these unique approaches leaders may wish to consider.

Imagine abandoning the annual cycle process that is often counterproductive, hard to plan and predict, and promotes complacency.  In the first few months of the year, it is easy to think “I am not quite on track for hitting targets, but there is plenty of time to catch up”, resulting in an end-of-year push.

Instead think about adopting a quarterly, 12-week, approach with proven disciplines and principles for effective execution that create clarity and focus on what matters most and a healthy sense of urgency.  There are three distinct differences in this approach. 

  1. Predictability:  creates a strong connection between actions and results achieved over a short period of time. 

  2. Focus: a few key areas that have the greatest impact and a plan to pursue these with intensity. 

  3. Structure: Plan, review, measure, and execute for faster results. 

Consider high-performing athletes who embrace periodization, a technique that isolates one skill at a time that needs developing. After perfecting it in a short amount of time, they focus on the next.  

This plan offers a roadmap for helping leaders to execute better, over a quarterly 12-week period, by focusing on what’s most important, leveraging their zone of genius (where they can make the biggest impact), protecting their time, and measuring results closely to achieve success faster.

Three Key Factors for Successful 12-Week Planning: 

  1. Develop a vision that is ambitious, and realistic, and inspires action, progress and results. Make time to think about long-term goals that will define where you want to go (what will matter in five or ten years).  You may be thinking “I know what I need to do - I don’t need to waste time writing out a plan”.  Knowing isn’t a substitute for planning and with no plan at all, daily actions will be driven by input triggers.

  2. Protecting and managing time effectively allows leaders to focus on high-impact activities. Deferring strategically important tasks to respond to less urgent activities decreases your ability to leverage your potential (e.g., emails, calls, people.) The difference between average and excellent results boils down to time management. Make proactive choices about your time using the following:

    • Strategic Blocks: three-hour periods of time with no interruptions focusing all your attention on strategic activities.

    • Buffer Blocks:  one hour, once or twice a day to deal with emails, voicemail, connections, etc.

    • Breakout Blocks: three-hour block once a week to step away from focused work priorities to stay fresh, focused, engaged, energetic, and balanced (e.g., grab a cup of coffee, step outside to get some fresh air, listen to music, take a walk…)

  3. Monitor and measure success by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) to understand periodic progress.  Annual plans are hard to follow as it is difficult to anticipate or predict what may be happening in six months.  To effectively monitor and measure progress, consider the following:

    • Measurement Systems: each goal should include the lead indicators (actions that lead to the goal) and lag indicators (goal/end result). 

    • Weekly Accountability Meeting: track and ensure progress: 1) Individual reporting (each member states tracking progress towards goals including results to date and weekly execution score (% of tasks completed), intentions for coming week), 2) successful techniques where the group shares what is working well and how to incorporate best practice and 3) encouragement/celebration.

Is this the right time to try a different approach? One that allows you to take control of your potential and performance in a more powerful way? The 12-week system offers leaders a new way to plan for and achieve greater success by speeding up execution while cutting out slack and complacency leading to greater success. 

Resources

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Credit: Mathew Stefan

What kind of leader (boss) do you want to be? What impact do you want to have? What do you want others to remember about you?


Tamara White
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