The Importance of the Third Quarter
This article was written by Rachel Brackin and published by Crossroads Professional Coaching
When it comes to reaching your goals and maximizing your potential in the field of business, excuses aren’t allowed and there is no room for failure. As a company, whether you are a small business or a corporation, you should have performance and revenue goals set for each year that are broken down into smaller attainable goals throughout each fiscal quarter. The end game here is to not only reach your end-of-year goals, but to exceed them. Business is just like any other team activity, such as football or basketball, where the 3rd quarter is the most important part of the game.
The real game starts after halftime in the 3rd quarter; when the pressure is on and there isn’t any more time to waste. Both in business and sports, the 3rd quarter showcases how your team makes adjustments to the environment and circumstances around them in order to gain the competitive advantage needed to complete goals, stand out in a crowd, and end on a win. The 3rd quarter is also crucial because it’s a strong indicator for what the last quarter of the year or game is going to resemble.
Oftentimes, it is difficult to complete long-term or year-end goals because those goals get forgotten due to new stressors and unforeseen circumstances or undermined because of a lack of consistency, organization, and motivation within your team. The 3rd quarter is a fundamental precursor of the future, so what are you going to do with it? The best way to maximize your full potential in the 3rd quarter of the year is to utilize the “4 R’s of Goal Setting” strategy.
What are the 4 R’s of Goal Setting?
1. Review:
- Review the goals from the beginning of the year. Determine which goals you have already accomplished and take some time to acknowledge what you have achieved so far. It is important to celebrate the small wins in order to keep momentum going.
- Examine what goals you are still working towards and make sure that they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-limited.
- A great way to do this is by holding a review meeting with key members of your company and top performers on your team to ensure that there is a maximum scope of visibility.
2. Re-evaluate:
- Take a step back to evaluate your remaining goals by reflecting on not only the purpose and reasoning behind the goal itself, but also the strategies, timing, and external variables involved in the process.
- Take into account all of the strengths and weaknesses of your situation, as well as the opportunities and threats for completing the goal. This will allow you to decide if the goals are still relevant. Just because a goal worked 6 months ago, doesn’t mean it works now.
- If your goal is no longer relevant, reflect on the issues and identify what wasn’t working.
3. Redefine:
- This is the stage where you should alter or redefine your goal to align with your present needs, the current market/environment, or any new found purpose or driver behind the goal.
- Create a game plan to fix what wasn’t working by restructuring your strategies, goals, and timelines.
4. Re-engage:
- Re-engage your team! Get the ball rolling on the new game plan that you have created to establish momentum for your goals. Make sure your team is amped up to put the work in and cross the finish line at the end of the year.
- Schedule regular team meetings to make sure that your goal isn’t sitting on the sidelines and that it is in the center field of vision for your company.