Our fiscal year starts each September 1. A few months before the start of the year, department leaders begin to work on their 12-month plan and then we complete our budget. We are an EOS Traction shop which means we follow a process that requires discipline and awareness of what we want to accomplish by when. We have measurables by quarter, themes and a regular review of our people to make sure they are working in their areas of strength and have or are working on a personal growth plan. We believe that to be competent and serve our clients, all of us must continuously grow in our mindsets and technical skills.
Wow! That sounds like a lot of pressure, the continuous growth thing – but think about it. Before you could crawl or walk, those stages were huge and yet most people accomplish them. Think about how we learn our mother tongue and the time and effort involved in putting sentences together. That takes years and, over time, our society realized it was so important to learn that we institutionalized it starting at age 5 or earlier!
I wonder why some adults take the approach that they are, as we say in the south, ‘good and baked’ in their 20s? In our company, we’ve chosen to make continuous growth a part of our culture. It’s a non-negotiable and it’s my job to monitor, cheerlead and innovate how we continuously improve. We can improve our physical strength, our mental resiliency, how we communicate with others, etc. but it takes a plan and motivation. People who choose to think they are done learning and growing will not thrive in our company. People who get excited about learning and improving will, as we like to say, ‘stay in joy’.
In the early 90s I was at a tradeshow and someone showed me this new thing called an email address. Yes, I’m dating myself, but some people dug in and resisted, get this, HAVING AN EMAIL ADDRESS! They resisted a more efficient way of communicating because it was unfamiliar. We are living in an exciting time and I for one cannot wait to hear about the next big innovation that helps us works smarter and with more joy. Our Traction model will help us decide which of the next-best-things we will choose to implement, but implement we will. Doing so – being open to exploring ways to do business better and delight our clients – will help us attract team members with a growth mindset and who want to find joy in their work.
– Becky Sharpe, CEO
