Think of all that delectable food laid out on the table for Thanksgiving – turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, cranberry sauce and more! It’s a beautiful thought. And it’s easy to gorge yourself on all that food before crashing into a coma in front of the televised Cowboys game.
But while satisfying on Thanksgiving, gorging yourself is a lot less feasible when it comes to your bank and credit union strategic planning goals. Take a look at some smaller portions as you close out 2024 and head into 2025.
Focus on Today
Antonio Neves, author of Stop Living on Autopilot, discusses how: "Making intentional choices, like identifying what's most important about today, rather than reactive choices, like letting your inbox drive your day, is key."
What are the most important things to accomplish today? Next week? This December?
You may want to do everything…but you can’t. Gorging yourself in this context means trying to get too many tasks done, likely leading to some lovely holiday burnout (and maybe average performance on the tasks). So, do the most important things. Make the greatest impact with the time you have.
Come up with a "Big 3" for the day, week and month. Perfectly achieve that smaller set of bank or credit union strategic planning goals. Have good days. And as Neves says, "Stacking good days on top of each other leads to a great week, month, quarter, year and life."
Not 0, Not 100
Having a 0 to 100 mindset is easy to do. All or nothing. Black or white.
The training is either cut completely or you need the whole dog-and-pony show. Your stressed-out marketing person either gets no help or can offload everything. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It might be time for a 20 to 70 mindset instead.
Keep the flow of training and marketing going…even if it’s smaller scale.
Microtraining involving brief remote sessions with a professional facilitator or fun, fast videos is a smaller way to continue training without giving your budget a stomachache. Your marketing person can get help without handing over the keys to the kingdom to a vendor. Think about design or copywriting assistance depending on your staff’s weak areas.
Learning That Piles Up
Continual learning is a necessity. After all, leaders are readers (or listeners or watchers these days). There is a mountain of potential resources available to you, but it’s hard to find the time to engage with professional development.
Once again, don’t gorge yourself. Don’t overthink it. Maybe you’d love to read every Patrick Lencioni book this year…but you’re just too busy. Don’t sweat it. Try reading one.
Find a podcast perfect for your commute. Watch a TED Talk you enjoy. Read a couple industry news pieces each day. These small portions pile up over time. And if you need a quick way to save information beyond trying to stuff more research into your crammed brain, try Pocket. This application lets you easily save articles so you can return to them later as you tackle bank or credit union strategic planning.
And for a partner that offers training and marketing help in smaller portions, book a free consultation with On The Mark Strategies. We’ll give you a consistent shoulder to lean on while executing your bank or credit union strategic plan (without sneakily stealing your wallet during the process).
