“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest” – Confucius
These past 3 weeks have been extremely busy for me, as the month September is usually slated for 3rd quarter board meetings. This 3rd quarter, various board meetings of which I am a director and/or chairman necessitated I travelled to London, Orlando and Lagos. The companies I am involved with range from fast growing small and emerging companies to publicly held companies in Nigeria and the US. Interestingly the format for these board meetings are similar, despite the variety in their business activities, size and turnover of companies. As directors, some of the information we wanted to know were the Q3 performance – how are they tracking relative to budget, potential risks that might change 2019 outcomes. And of course – provide insights that will help the management team stir the affairs of the company.
As the 3rd quarter of 2019 come to an end, you also ought to conduct your 3rd quarter personal review as an individual and/or business owner. You are first and foremost the Managing Director of YOU Inc. At the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019, you likely wrote out your list of goals and objectives for 2019. Scheduling sometime next week will be a perfect opportunity to review your progress thus far. Schedule some time where you will be free from all distractions and have a board meeting with yourself.
This quarterly review process is an extension of your weekly review. You spend more time during this process to review each of the areas that are most important to you.
I will like to share Micheal Hyatt’s Quarterly Personal Review Process, which I found extremely useful. Micheal is a leading leadership coach, author and speaker. Because this is such an important process in his life, he checks into a hotel for 24 hours to conduct this process with absolutely no distractions. His agenda for his quarterly review process includes:
- Spend time praying – He thanks God for the past 90 days and all that has happened to him. He then prays about the big issues he is experiencing and spends time reconnecting with God to make sure he is still part of God’s agenda, by allowing some time to listen for any new directions;
- Review Life Plan – Micheal has a document that breaks his life into “accounts”. Some of his accounts are God, Self, Wife, Children, Finances, Career, Friends etc. Some of these accounts have a giant value, some good balances and some overdrawn. For each of these accounts, he has an envisioned future, statement of purpose, his current reality and specific commitments. Do you have yours?
- Review Business Vision – His Quarterly Review is an opportunity to reconnect with his Business Vision. Some questions he asks himself are: What am I building toward? What does the business look like in five years? Note that he doesn’t create his vision during this time; He has already done that previously. During this time, he reviews the written document, tries to visualize it, and make sure He is crystal clear—to the extent possible—on where he is going.
- Write goals for the upcoming quarter – He takes his life plan and business vision documents and then begins to write his specific objectives for the next 90 days. This is not a long list of To-Dos, but a list of five – seven most important things that he can work upon that he can do next quarter to move towards his personal and professional vision. He makes 2 lists and writes them in a 3 x 5 card which he takes around with him (very useful insight for me – its easy to forget the 5-7 most important things you are working on).