Have You Received Your Evaluation
The US Thanksgiving holiday is not only a time for us to reflect on the blessings in our lives, but it's a perfect reminder for us to take stock of our accomplishments.
When you attend a seminar, you'll often be asked to complete an evaluation form at the end. Typical questions are:
- What was your best take away from the seminar?
- What did we do well?
- What was the most effective part of the program?
- What do you intend to do differently based on what you learned?
- What action steps are you going to take?
If you're like me, I evaluate the seminar based on my investment in it - both time and dollars. Did I get the bang for my buck, so to speak, that I expected?
Have you done this kind of reflection on your own activities for the past year? You've most certainly invested time and dollars this past year.
This isn't just a pat yourself on the back exercise, although there's certainly merit in acknowledging your achievements! Too often as I work with small business owners I find they are mentally beating themselves over the head for should-have's. I have to figuratively wrestle the bat out of their hands to get their focus back on their roadmap to success.
So, while the acknowledgement that small business owners rarely give themselves for their achievements is very important, it's the learning we take from it that will propel us to even greater success.
Grab a pad and pen and let's do a short, but important, evaluation exercise that will set the stage for what lies ahead. Ready? Here are the questions.
- What opportunities were we able to take advantage of in the past twelve months?
- List 5-10 things we did really well in the past twelve months.
- Of those things, which one was the best return on our investment of time and dollars?
- What were 3 things we learned (based on what we experienced, from something that worked, or from something that didn't work)?
- What are some great ideas we came up with, didn't get implemented, but would like to?
Remember, we're focusing on our successes, thankful, like the Pilgrims, for the achievements and experiences of the past year. We're also reflecting on our activities so that what we did well and what we learned, we can leverage to achieve even greater success in the upcoming year.
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