It may be hard to believe we are almost six months into 2020, and it may be even harder to put into words how that first half has gone, other than it didn’t go as planned.
Even though your long-term strategic priorities may be the same, your business may not have reached any of your quarterly goals this year so far.
The last few months have forced organizations to pivot their priorities, halt hiring, lay off employees and learn how to run teams that are fully remote.
No one could’ve seen a pandemic coming, and no one could’ve been fully prepared to weather their business through one.
If there is no way your annual OKRs or goals are going to be met, the halfway point is a good time to reassess and rewrite some of those goals if you haven’t already.
The next six months may be just as unpredictable as the first half, but here are some ways to help you and your business prepare for that uncertainty.
There are a lot of outside factors that could be affecting productivity and focus right now. Ask what changes could be made to better accommodate the current work environment. Can certain meetings be eliminated and turned into a video recording or other forms of communication instead? Are there tasks that could probably be put on the back burner for a while to stay focused on the most important work? Are some people feeling burned out and overworked with remote work making it harder to “turn work off”? Give your team some slack and acknowledge that the current work environment is nothing like it was six months ago. Have conversations about where everyone is at mentally, and set realistic expectations about what can get accomplished moving forward.
Are there some goals that will absolutely not be able to be met, such as goals related to in- person events? Or did your business have a hiring goal but has been in a hiring freeze the past three months? If you haven’t already, take the time to rewrite these annual goals to make them more attainable. If you’re using OKRs for goal management, objectives can still be ambitious and roll over into the next quarter or year, but remember that OKRs allow for flexibility to adjust and pivot if the goals you set in January just don’t make sense anymore.
Take the next couple of weeks ahead of Q3 and the second half of the year to go over what is working for your team and what is not. Has your team adopted new strategies because of COVID, and if so, have they been successful? Take this time to reflect, regroup and ask for your team’s input. Communication is key for goal planning. With everyone on the same page, team members will be able to better set goals that directly contribute to the organization’s success.
No one knows what the next six months are going to look like, but that doesn’t mean you can’t better prepare your team to handle challenges and new directions.
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