We can hardly believe how quickly 2019 passed by! From all of us at Biz Group, we would like to wish our followers a very happy and successful new year ahead.
With every new year brings an old tradition—people setting specific goals to change undesired traits or behaviours about themselves in order to accomplish personal goals and improve their overall way of life. These goals are known as New Years Resolutions and I'm sure you would have heard examples of them on social media and from friends and family.
If you are setting resolutions in 2020, I encourage you to try and set them for your work life as well as they could help you to better yourself at work and achieve more business success in the new year. But how? Resolutions can help you to create:
- A high contribution culture that will promote business growth
- Honest and open feedback between yourself and your team members
- Increased happiness levels
If you need inspiration, I've compiled a list of 5 top new year's resolutions to help improve your work-life balance.
Open and honest communication is key to the success of any business, and according to Harvard Business Review, a whopping two thirds of managers find it uncomfortable communicating with colleagues, and one third find it uncomfortable to give direct feedback on an employees performance if they think the employee will react badly to the feedback.
But why is communication so important?
Communication isnt just speaking to someone in the canteen, it can formal, informal, internal and external. There are many benefits of effective workplace communication, such as: stronger teamwork between employees, a safe and non-threatening work environment and less misunderstanding between each other if a problem arises. If you nail down your communication processes, then we guarantee you will see a change in your overall business results.
Biz Group recommendation:
Learn the tools to have the uncomfortable conversations with your friends and or colleagues when the stakes are high and emotions run strong. These are the conversations that are holding you back and when they are held respectfully and productively, you can uncover new levels of collaboration and efficiency.
They are known as Crucial Conversations, they can help you:
- Speak up when emotions are strong and the stakes are high
- Develop skills to have productive conversations
- Build a high performance culture based on honest and constructive feedback
Find out more about our Crucial Conversations Training and request a callback if you have any questions.
It's a known fact that everyone is different, and despite that, people still compare themselves to each other in specific work tasks and areas. But this mindset can be detrimental to work performance and may lead to lower motivation levels. That's why it's important to start assessing yourself and your own capabilities and identify your strengths and weaknesses, as it gives you a better understanding of how you function and how you can grow even more.
Strengths
Your strengths are the parts of yourself that you can leverage in order to push yourself even further in your career. As these are things you are already experienced with and can execute well, then you won't have to invest as much time and effort into them.
For example: One of your strengths may be that you are great at content writing and proof reading. So you may volunteer to help others who are struggling with writing or read their work in order to identify mistakes. This way you can help out in more areas of the businesses and start building up more responsibilities and rapport with members of the team.
Weaknesses
A common misconception of weaknesses is that they should be ignored completely, and that shouldn't be the case. Weaknesses give you an indication of areas that may be holding you back at work, and how you can focus on not letting your weaknesses lead to slower personal growth. By finding ways to work around them, you can ensure that you grow at a steady pace and focus on the parts of work you are really good at.
For example: If you are launching a marketing campaign and need to design adverts that require technical design skills and you know that you are not as creative in that way, then you need to get a graphic designer to work with you closely in order to establish what you expect.
Biz Group recommendation:
Use assessment centres and tools such as job-related simulations, interviews, and/or psychological tests, which can give you a great indication of your strengths and weaknesses in different situations. We like Gallup CliftonStrengths.
Another great resolution is to set some time aside for yourself every month to learning something new. It may or may not be directly related to your business, but by doing this you will add to your repertoire of skills and improve your own self satisfaction, which will directly contribute to achieving the best work-life balance possible.
We definitely recommend starting by learning something which relates to your job position as it can help you to improve overall business success, come up with new ideas to improve existing processes, and help you to become an expert in your field.
Biz Group recommendation:
Have a search around for courses that relate to your area of expertise that you may not be as competent in, and study study study! Or alternatively, if you use online tools and software that help you with your internal processes, make sure to read up on how to use them to their full potential. We also offer many learning experiences for leaders and teams, so make sure to view our full offerings.
It's 2020 and technology is so different to how it was 20 years ago. To ensure you can keep up with your competition and be 'future ready', it's vital for you to start thinking about investing in technologies and innovations, to help improve internal processes, stay ahead of the curve and have a stronger competitive edge.
According to financesonline, 52% of business invest in new technologies to reinforce business growth, and AI leads the technologies list with 72% of CIO's wanting to use it.
Being technologically savvy is also crucial for leaders who are trying to navigate through this rapidly changing business landscape.
Biz Group recommendation:
- Make sure that you have a great digital presence with a fully optimised website, social media presence and regularly write interesting and informative content to keep your clients and followers up-to-date with the latest information.
- Also, make sure to check out our new LearningJourney™ that focuses on Developing Digital Leaders. It focuses on 3 key areas of disruptions and change, and utilises the latest Virtual Reality learning technology.
The last resolution on my list is important and is something you should abide by in 2020. It's super important to make sure you are kinder to yourself and not to beat yourself up if you cannot fulfill a personal goal or if you make a mistake at work.
But why?
Well, as humans, we are naturally much more harder on ourselves than others, especially in times of stress and reflection. But having this negative mentality will only hinder your progress at work and in your personal life and stop you from achieving business success.
Biz Group recommendations:
We have rounded up a few points that will help you not to be so hard on yourself and how to focus on the positive aspects of work:
- Don't compare yourself to others
- There is no right way for anything
- Accept your weaknesses and focus on your strengths
- Don't underestimate your ability
- Stand up for what you believe in
- Surround yourself in a like-minded culture
Thank you for reading this blog post, and remember, if you would like any help with improving your business results for the new year then we would love to hear from you!
Keep learning,
Biz Group
