When resolutions fail: Building momentum in a world of resolution fatigue

We are now nearing the end of February, the new-year hype is well and truly over and, I wonder how you’re getting on with any new year's resolutions you set for this year. Perhaps that vow to eat healthier was going so well until you walked past the chip shop on your way home from work and just couldn’t resist the gorgeous salty, greasy smell… Or maybe the winter weariness has hit you and an extra thirty minutes in bed seems far more appealing than that morning walk you were so motivated to make a habit of at the beginning of the year. Well, if you’re struggling to follow your resolution this year, you’re not alone - it’s estimated that up to 80% of new year’s resolutions fail, with the majority being dropped by February.?

Unfortunately, this pattern is not distinct to our personal lives - it’s something we see, time and time again operating in the business world as well - in which businesses start the year (or any other similar new ‘chapter’ such as a new project or new financial year) with a strong, bold ambition for growth and transformation, which they communicate to their employees through a set of snappy strategies and vision statements. But, over time, as the day to day kicks in, people get tired and distracted, challenges are faced - the early excitement starts to fade and those bold statements fade into the background, feeling somewhat disconnected from the ‘now’.?

Wherever you sit in your organisation, I’m sure all of you can connect to a similar feeling either now or in the past in which your C-Suite are continuing to drill home that strategy or vision statement you’ve heard countless time before, but to you, it’s become to you just meaningless, empty words. Or maybe as a C-Suite member yourself, you might be looking at what you committed to you a few weeks or months ago, and wonder how on earth you can keep up with this while also dealing with everything else going on in the body of your organisation?

Well, I’m not trying to pretend that this blog post is going to miraculously change any of that. After all, it’s no secret that change is hard and failure, to some extent, is inevitable - it’s part of how we learn and evolve as humans and as organisations. But, for what it’s worth, here are 3 of our top tips for helping you to build momentum and maintain focus on your strategic goals across your organisation.

1. Focus on people at the heart of the transformation.

Whatever your goals might be - to grow, to change your ways of working, to develop digital or technical capabilities - the key to making this possible is people. We cannot make change happen without the involvement of the people who live out that change. And by people we mean everyone across the organisation, no matter what their pay grade or department may be. It might seem that your goal to grow by x% in Q4 might not be relevant to that employee who cleans the toilets or fixes broken laptops - but you must make it relevant.

After all, you’re not going to be able to grow if your employees don’t have the hardware to work off, or your staff can’t access the facilities they need in the office, can you? Of course, there are going to be some people who might be more directly involved in helping you reach that goal than others, but if you’ve got half employees moving in one direction while a few are staying still - you’re going to end up with a disjointed, incoherent organisation without a clear focus.

Make it so that every individual within the organisation knows their role in achieving your goal or ambition for this chapter. That might mean generating different vision statements underneath your main vision statement that speak to different areas of your organisation. It might mean asking every employee to include one goal within their personal development plan that relates to the company's strategic ambition, so that they have to think for themselves about how they are going to be involved in making it happen. Or it might be about asking line managers to have direct conversations with staff about what it means for them.

2. Foster commitment, not motivation.

I’m all for a good snappy vision statement and slick video to generate excitement around an opportunity and build motivation. But it is impossible to feel motivated to do something 100% of the time, especially when there are competing priorities or obstacles getting in the way of achieving it. That’s why we believe that commitment, not motivation, is the key to success - while motivation ebbs and flows, commitment, by its nature, is consistent in the fact of challenge.?

There’s a saying that ‘commitment is following through with what said you were going to do, long after the mood you said it in has left you’. So, as you involve your people in your strategic goals, it’s important to ensure not just that they know their part in making them happen, but that they are committed to doing so. An important step in making this happen is in the language individuals use to state their involvement - focus on ‘I will’ statements with measurable action, rather than broad, impersonal statements which fast become empty words. This then becomes a pledge to action, which individuals can be held accountable to over time..

3. Regularly review progress and iterate accordingly.

A final problem why strategic goals often fail to filter through an organisation is because progress is often not discussed. It might be that the bold vision statement or strategy is stated regularly, but how often do you have conversations about how it’s actually going? Your employees don’t want to just hear at the start and end of the year (and maybe mid-year) about this strategy- if you want to get them involved, and have their commitment, they need to know what progress has been made to see how their actions are making a difference, and (if necessary), what needs to change to keep that momentum going.?

This review holds at a corporate level but also on an individual level too. As stated above, employees need to be held accountable to their individual goals, or ‘I will’ statements you encourage them to make - and to do this, they need to be discussed regularly with their line manager to evaluate how things are going. If goals are made and then not discussed, they’ll quickly be forgotten and that commitment will dissipate. But if progress is regularly reviewed against these tangible goals, and, if necessary, these are iterated to ensure they are still relevant and helpful - this will lead to consistent action.

In summary, if individuals know their role, are committed to it, and regularly review progress towards it in an iterative and transparent manner - it is possible to make your goals a reality.