Facing 2010: Time to Invest in the Future

As we approach the New Year and the start of a new decade, this is the tra­di­tional time to reflect and dream: look­ing back over the past year, imag­in­ing new pos­si­bil­i­ties and then set­ting goals for 2010. The ques­tion is, how good are the res­o­lu­tions and inten­tions you set for the com­ing year? How do you approach this process? What oppor­tu­ni­ties do you cre­ate for your­self and your business?

Late Decem­ber tends to be a quiet time in my con­sult­ing prac­tice, a chance to reflect, rethink, imag­ine, and pos­si­bly rein­vent ser­vice offer­ings for clients. Or envi­sion new types of clients. I use it as a time to read or re-read busi­ness books, mag­a­zines, blogs and other resources that might trig­ger new ideas or spark rela­tion­ships to pur­sue. I also learn new skills (like learn­ing to blog) or exper­i­ment with new ser­vices and capa­bil­i­ties. But mainly it’s a fer­tile time to imag­ine new possibilities.

Some­times these reflec­tions are in the fore­ground of my mind, more often per­co­lat­ing in the back­ground while I read mate­ri­als cho­sen to pro­voke and push me out of habit­ual pat­terns of thought or assump­tion mak­ing. I’ve learned that the ones that often prove most pro­duc­tive are the uncon­scious ideas that per­co­late, the chance meet­ings with friends and busi­ness asso­ciates, the pat­terns and asso­ci­a­tions that emerge with­out my being aware of them.

15⁺ years of con­sult­ing have taught me to to trust in Louis Pasteur’s adage,

Chance favors the pre­pared mind.

So how do I pre­pare for a new year? The key is break­ing out of day-to-day habits in terms of what to read, what to pon­der, what to try, or what to imag­ine. So here’s what’s on my desk for inspi­ra­tion or exper­i­men­ta­tion this week, admit­tedly a some­what ran­dom assort­ment of resources:

• Har­vard Busi­ness Review, January-February 2010 issue, theme: “Rein­vent Your Com­pany, Your Strat­egy, Your Mar­ket­ing, Your Career”
• Attract­ing Per­fect Cus­tomers: The Power of Strate­gic Syn­chronic­ity, by Stacey Hall & Jan Brogniez
• Pre­sen­ta­tion Zen Design, Garr Reynolds
• Mak­ing Mean­ing: How Suc­cess­ful Busi­nesses Deliver Mean­ing­ful Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ences, by Steve Diller, Nathan She­droff, Dar­rel Rhea
• Unstuck, Keith Yamashita & San­dra Spataro
• Brain Rules: 12 Prin­ci­ples for Sur­viv­ing and Thriv­ing at Work, Home, and School, by John Medina
• Social Media Mar­ket­ing for Dum­mies, by Shiv Singh [I hate the title…]
• Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman
• Yoga Jour­nal, Feb­ru­ary 2010 issue, theme: “Renew your prac­tice, renew your Self”
• Mac OS X Server Essen­tials v10.6, Arek Dreyer with Ben Greisler — yes, I’m learn­ing how to man­age a small server as a future Extranet resource for client projects

Highly cre­ative or cere­bral work requires a well-exercised (and well-rested) body; there’s abun­dant sci­en­tific research to affirm this (see Medina’s Brain Rules for proof).

So I also take advan­tage of the quiet time in Decem­ber for bik­ing, hik­ing and extra yoga classes, or in-home yoga prac­tice by can­dle­light. Not to men­tion social­iz­ing with friends and fam­ily. Cel­e­brat­ing life and rela­tion­ships over home-cooked meals, potluck gourmet feasts with friends, accom­pa­nied by won­der­ful bot­tles of wine.

How do you pre­pare your­self and your busi­ness for the New Year?

Tagged as: corporate purpose, inspiration, planning, preparing for the future