At the beginning of the year, many leaders make grand plans. They set lofty goals and create lists of action items to hit those targets.But then reality hits. January turns into February, and the days keep ticking by, and suddenly, here we are. March is just over the horizon. Because it is early in the year, there is a perception that there is a lot of time to recover. But history says that recovery is much, much harder than just staying on target from the beginning of the year. Hope outweighs opportunity.This is especially true if you actually made a realistic plan. Why? The more your plan is based in reality, the more any deviations from that plan will throw things out of whack. And the bigger the gap between reality and your target becomes, the more challenging it will be to close. After all, if you are doing continuous improvement correctly, you’ll be pushing yourself to make big improvements. You probably aren’t leaving much excess improvement capacity on the table.<div class="iframe-wrapper"><iframe src="https://iframe.mediadelivery.net/embed/431082/888a8d99-d40a-49ef-b669-d9b45fadac8f?autoplay=false" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div><h4 id="606e464e-f429-479a-95bf-d6ac52e252e4" data-toc-id="606e464e-f429-479a-95bf-d6ac52e252e4" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.2;">So, what should you do?</h4><ol style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px;"><li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Assess your goals&nbsp;and decide whether they are realistic or if they were more random in their establishment. You can recognize a well-thought-out metric in two basic ways. The first is that it uses a tool or process to create it. If your company uses policy deployment and your goals are tracked on a KPI Bowler used throughout the company, you likely have a system in place. The second way to tell is if the goals are not linear from month to month. Most goals aren’t reached by doing things in little, even increments. They have a new process developed in a&nbsp;kaizen&nbsp;event in April, and in June, a design change is rolled out, and in November, a machine is upgraded. You should see an uneven staircase look to your goals, not a smooth ramp.</li><li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Look over the action plan.&nbsp;If there is no action plan, make one. If there is a plan, assess its viability and determine whether getting on track is a matter of catching up on a few missed deadlines, or if the baby needs to go out with the bathwater and you have to start over. I also recommend talking to the people named as action item owners. If they have no clue what you are talking about, there is a big problem.</li><li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Identify the reasons you are missing.&nbsp;If you haven’t been able to hit realistic goals and the action plan seems reasonable to complete, do a realistic self-assessment to determine what the issue was. Is there buy-in? Is there competition for resources? Are there crises that keep taking people away from project time? Was there clear communication about the targets? Figure out why there was a miss and work on those issues.</li><li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Revise your targets.&nbsp;Sometimes people’s eyes are bigger than their stomachs. You might have bitten off more than you can chew. If you have too many projects or overly aggressive goals, you should update your plan.</li></ol>The bottom line is that you should not continue on the same course if you are not making progress. Make a change. Do something. The alternative is that you are neglecting the importance of industrial discipline.That isn’t, despite the name, anything punishment or consequence-related. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There are natural consequences to not having good industrial discipline. If you don’t do the little things well as planned, the big things have no chance. And if you make it OK in your company to make promises and not keep them, make no mistake. You have no industrial discipline.It is extremely hard to be successful in a continuous improvement culture if people don’t deliver on what they promise. And goals are a form of a promise. It is better to make fewer, smaller goals and hit them than big goals that you miss and don’t do anything about.There is a caveat. If you make aggressive goals and do the right things to try to hit them and fall short, you still make better progress than kindergarten-level goals. Just make sure that there are clear expectations. Hitting 100% of your goals is a bad thing. It means your goals are too weak and you are leaving a lot of opportunity on the table. But this concept is probably better left for another time, as it is a big, philosophical discussion about leadership.For now, just focus on the actions you are taking to make sure your goals are on track.Admin note…this article/lesson was originally released as a mid-February newsletter to our CI Central members.&nbsp;

Most companies make annual plans that start in the beginning of the year. Make sure you are reviewing progress regularly and early enough so you can adjust if you are not on track.

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Are You Starting the Year Out Right?

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