In thinking about writing this post, I worried that it might be seen in the same light as THAT Christmas letter. You know, the one you get that is all about people bragging about their family and their accomplishments? As one of my team members reminded me, that is one of the reasons people send Christmas letters, and I suppose it is one reason I am writing this post.

However, there are two other, hopefully more instructive reasons, for me to write and for you to read this post. I’ll save those reasons for the end. If I’ve done my job they will be mostly obvious to you by that time.

Here then are some of the most important accomplishments of The Kevin Eikenberry Group in 2014.

• Our team grew. We added three new team members, Laura, Lisa and Marisa, who have strengthened our team and allowed us to make the list that follows longer!
• The Remote Leadership Certificate Series. In partnership with our friend, Wayne Turmel of GreatWebMeetings.com, we created a series of virtually delivered sessions to help leaders of remote teams be more confident and competent. We have delivered this series 3 times in this year, have filled the first session of 2015 and have many new products coming for remote leaders in 2015. Want to learn more about what we are up to in this area? You can learn more here – or take a free video tutorial here.
• Certified our first Bud to Boss Trainers and Organizations. While we deliver public workshops, keynotes, on site workshops and Customized workshops around the content of the book From Bud to Boss, we also now have a modularized version of this workshop that we can certify others to deliver. We offer this to both consultants and trainers wanting to add this to their offerings, and to organizations who want to train their own people. Our next certification session is in February. You can learn more here.
• Taking Bud to Boss to China. We are finishing work on a version of the Bud to Boss workshops customized for China, to be delivered through a licensing agreement.
• Finishing a new book. In late January we’ll publish our newest book, My Journey From Bud to Boss: A Guide to Navigating the Transition to Remarkable Leadership. You will hear much more about this new resource in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
• Delivered two public workshops with sponsorship partners. As I mentioned, we deliver public workshops all over the country (you can see a list here), but in 2014 a Client in Boston and an ASTD Chapter in Iowa partnered with us to put more people in workshops in their areas. We are planning to do much more of this in 2015. (Contact Marlene if you would like to learn more about doing that.)
• Finished two series of e-learning courses. In partnership with Vado, a leading e-learning design firm, we have created a series of fully SCORM-compliant e-learning/online performance support modules for new supervisors (based on and branded with From Bud to Boss) and remote leadership (based on and branded with our Remote Leadership Certificate Series). If you want to learn more, contact Barb to discuss and get access to samples.
• Promoted and delivered more than 45 teleseminars in our Remarkable Learning Teleseminar Series. These teleseminars covered topics of interest to professionals wanting to be better leaders, communicators and team members. To see a list of past calls (available on recordings) or a list of upcoming calls, go here.
• Launched Remarkable TV. Each Tuesday starting in late January we premiered a new episode of Remarkable TV. Most episodes feature me sharing a clear and short message, action or approach to become a more effective, leader, coach, communicator and more. This series will continue far into the future, with plans to continue to improve the content and quality of these episodes!
• Significant growth of DiscPersonalityTesting.com. You may not know that we offer a fully functional DISC assessment platform for individuals and team/organizational use. This year our traffic and revenue grew by a factor of 10. We are now offering additional products and services to help people understand and use the disc model to get better results as a communicator and leader.
• Launched or relaunched six websites. This blog, Remarkable Communicator, Remarkable Leadership, Remarkable Coaching and Remarkable Learning were all updated or created this year, plus an internal members-only website as well.
• Kevin was recognized by Inc.com. I was listed by Inc.com as one of the top 100 Leadership and Management Thinkers and recently to the top 100 Leadership Speakers list.

This isn’t close to a complete list, there are many other internally important accomplishments as well as other growth measures, Client success stories and more that could have made this list – but I don’t want this post to be all about us, so let me, as promised, get to some additional value for you.

Why else did I write this post?

I hope you see that many of the items listed above, while we are proud of them, have benefit for you. If we aren’t providing value to our Clients and future Clients with our efforts then we are missing the mark and wasting our time. I hope that this list gives you a broader view of who we are and how we might be able to help you now and in the future.

The other direct reason for writing this is to walk my talk and be a good example for you. I’ve written many times, including within the last week, about the importance of reflection. When we reflect on what we have accomplished, it reminds us of those accomplishments (and perhaps our misses), and spurs us to even greater aspirations moving forward. It is our hope that you will do that reflection and that we can be a part of helping you reach those new, higher, more valuable aspirations in the coming year.

The image here shows many of the things that might be on your mind and on your calendar for New Year’s Eve; and while there is nothing wrong with any of those things, I going to share a short exercise with you that will be fun, informative and might be the most valuable 90 minutes you’ve spent in a long while.

It is possible you could take longer than 90 minutes, and you could perhaps spend a bit less time, but if you will look at your calendar for New Year’s Eve and give yourself 90 minutes to do what follows, you will be very glad you did (and it will give you one more reason to celebrate).

Find a quiet comfortable place to do this activity. You will need a pad of paper and something to write with. You might want your calendar and a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage. You won’t need the internet or other technology, I promise. In fact, part of the value is to disconnect from your stuff and connect with yourself.

Here is how I suggest you spend the 90 minutes you have set aside.

1. Look back at last year (20 minutes).

Take some time to look back over the complete year. Think back over the events of the year, the accomplishments and the disappointments. With your pen and paper handy, make notes of what you think about. Write down the key memories of the year, the new friends, and the friends you lost or drifted away. There needs to be no real process here, just spend time thinking and writing about the past year. Your calendar might be helpful in spurring memories, and if so, use it.

This is pure review – not everything in your year was perfect, so capture the fullness of the year – the glad and the sad, the joys and struggles, the achievements and disappointments.

2. Spend time in gratitude (20 minutes)

Next, focus on the great things in your life, the things you are grateful for. The year in review exercise should give you many things to be grateful for, and even if you had a particularly challenging year, you likely have identified a number of things to be grateful for. But don’t stop with the last year! There are things large and small to be grateful for, all around us! Write them all down, allowing yourself to look for and notice things, people, situations and emotions you are thankful for.

This time is meant to provide perspective and buoy your emotions as you prepare for the rest of the exercise. And if you put yourself into these 20 minutes, I guarantee you will feel great as you move to step three.

3. Look forward (20 minutes)

Think forward to the year in front of you. Make note of the things you are looking forward to, whether a dinner with a friend, or the vacation you have been planning for years. This can include both what you know the year holds and a list of things you would like to happen in the next twelve months. This is a chance to let your mind, heart and soul be free.

Use this time to project and describe the year you want to have. Take off the limitations and let the pen run over the paper. This list doesn’t have to be perfect or complete. After all, we are only taking 20 minutes. Write down what comes to you in whatever order the words come to you.

4. Pick your focus word (10 minutes)

With the three inputs of your last hour (which will have likely flown by!), now think about the coming year in a more intention way. Your goal now is to find a word that will encapsulate your thoughts and feelings for the coming year. What word will move you and remind you of the feeling you have now? What word will help you create as much of the New Year as you have just described? What word will help you focus on how to best create the year you want to create?

There are no perfect words here; just start writing words down as they come to you. At the end of the ten minutes, pick the one that is calling to you. You will want to “try this word on” and live with it for a day or so. Chances are if it doesn’t quite fit, you will identify a new, better word (whether from your original list or not) within a couple days. Just make sure that soon you do pick your focus word for the year.

5. Write a letter to yourself (20 minutes)

This might sound strange, but please do this last step. Take out a fresh piece of paper, or move to a computer if you must, and write yourself a letter. This is a letter that you are writing as if it were written about 360 days from now. In other words, you are writing a letter to yourself about the year that you are about to live!

Write this letter describing your accomplishments and things that you have done that have brought joy to you and others. Make this the most positive letter – a letter you love to receive. The goal is to receive it one year from now and make it part of your reflection process next year. There are two ways to make that happen:

• Literally put the letter in an envelope address it to yourself and stamp it, then give it to a friend and ask them to mail it back late next December. Write on the outside of the envelope, “Do not open until New Year’s Eve.”
• Send an email to us at newyear@KevinEikenberry.com with “My Year in Review” in the subject line. In the body of the email, remind yourself briefly about the letter – and this is important – where you put it. We will send your email back to you in late December so you can find and read your letter.

As I said at the start, the times are approximate. In the end, this is your exercise and my hope is that even if you adjust it, that you will try it. By now you have also figured out that it wouldn’t have to be done on New Year’s Eve, but I really suggest you do it then – psychologically it is a perfect time to do it!

You might have expected me to mention goal setting, and while I am a big fan of it, I didn’t suggest it specifically in this activity. This activity will however be an excellent starting point for goal setting for the coming year. Take your notes from this activity and you will have a big head start as you think about setting specific goals for the coming year – and with this head start, finish the job soon.

One final thought. If this exercise and the entire idea of getting intentional about your future excites you, I hope you will consider joining me on January 8th when I present a very special teleseminar titled, Start Today! How to Make Your Next 12 Months Your Best 12 Months. You can learn all about it, and register here. I look forward to “seeing” you then.

All sorts of lists are concocted this time of year. They are designed to get people to reflect, to provide perspective and help people remember. It is also well know that people love lists. For all of those reasons, I write this post today!

What follows are the ten most popular (as determined by number of page views) blog posts I wrote this year. There are many factors that play into those views, including who and how many people shared it with others. If you like this post, I hope you will choose to do that too!

Here we go (in my best Casey Kasem voice). We’re counting them down from number ten . . .

10. Your Success Depends on This Skill: Not a bad place to start the countdown with a post about your success. No one will be more interested in that than you, and here is a good place to start.

9. Gallup is Wrong, and You Should be Happy: I don’t usually write controversial titles like this, even though they often get people to read. The post is about a very important point well worth reading. And for the record, I think Gallup does really good work!

8. 10 Questions to Make You a Better Listener: There’s another post about questions later in the countdown, but this is a good place to start. Besides, everyone would like to be a better listener, right?

7. Remarkable TV: There’s More Than One Way to Coach: This post was nominated as one of the top 10 Sales and Marketing Videos of the year. Trust me, it isn’t just about Sales and Marketing – which is a probably why it didn’t win the award, but is a very good reason for you to watch it!

6. Remarkable TV: Can You Coach Attitude?: This is the highest ranking of my video posts this year. You will see more on a related topic closer to the top of the rankings.

5. 9 Reasons Organizations Don’t Train Their Leaders: Written just a few weeks ago, this is the most important post I wrote this year for organizations. If you are in a position with responsibility for other leaders, I urge you to read this. If you know someone else who is, forward it to them.

4. Ten Questions Leaders Should Ask Every Day: This is personally one of my favorite posts of the year. Maybe that doesn’t matter to you, but you might like to know that the title lies – there aren’t 10 questions, there are 20.

3. How to Keep the Negative Attitudes of Others From Impacting You: We all deal with negativity at work. This post gives you some ways to keep the attitude of others from impacting you negatively.

2. Three Types of Forgiveness and Why They Matter to Us as Leaders: Perhaps forgiveness isn’t at the top of your list of things to think about as a leader, but this post may give you reasons to change your mind. And there is a link to a very cool Forgiveness Scale too!

1. What The Best Leaders Will Learn From Peyton Manning (But Most will Ignore): I admit I wrote it right before the Super Bowl about a famous person who was going to play in the game, but the lessons stand on their own at any time of the year.

There you have it – the top ten posts I wrote this year, as rated by page views.

There were 13 posts written prior to 2014 that had more page views this year than #10 on this list did, but these posts struck a chord with readers and I am glad they did. I’ll keep writing in 2015, and I hope you will keep reading!

We’ve all dealt with it many times – the project gets behind and the pressure is on. Or something changes in the organization – a supply problem, a system is down, manufacturing is halted (you know what your crises are), and suddenly something needs to be fixed now. Or your boss gives you a priority project that is due in three days (or three hours).

I am describing stressful situations –and the stress is caused by the tight (or impossible?) deadline. Even the word is scary – after all it includes the word “dead.”

While there may be a number of things that might prevent some of these deadlines (or significantly reduce the problems they cause), that is mostly for a different day. Today I want to discuss strategies we can use when we find ourselves facing the deadline – how can we deal with it more effectively, and thereby reduce our stress and build our confidence? After all, doing those two things in themselves will get us better results.

So how can we deal with deadlines more effectively?

Take a breath. When the deadline arrives, your blood pressure goes up and your ability to think clearly likely goes the other direction. Stop for a second and take a deep breath. This moment will help you physiologically and psychologically. Take a breath.

Understand the context. In some cases (the production line is down), the context may be completely obvious. Many deadlines that show up are much less clear. When someone else informs us of the situation, oftentimes they don’t help us see the big picture (or assume that we know it). Oftentimes, with your perspective the deadline might not be as ominous, or you might be able to manage the work differently when you really know how this “problem” fits into that bigger picture.

(Really) understand the Customer expectations. So you have the deadline, but do you know what people need from you and the solution? Do you even know who will be using this outcome? Take the time to ask what people need and why. Doing this will help you define what really needs to be done, versus what you might assume is required.

Negotiate as appropriate. Once you really understand both the context and their expectations you might decide you need to negotiate the deadline or the expectations, or perhaps, armed with that information you realize that negotiation isn’t appropriate or even an option. At least now you know!

Remember the three legged stool. It is often said you can’t have something (a report, product or project) fast, cheap and at the highest quality. Everyone wants all three, but in most cases you can only get two of the three. So if speed is needed (due to the deadline), think about your tradeoffs between quality and cost. This realization may also help you in understanding and negotiating expectations too.

Think 80/20. 80% of the value comes from 20% of the effort. 80% of the results will come from 20% of the work. These are just two applications of the 80/20 rule that might help you better understand how to attack your deadline. When you are under time constraints, recognize that you will have to focus on the most important parts of the project or the outcome. Make sure the work you are doing provides the greatest return for your efforts.

Re-prioritize around it. The deadline is real, which means other work will have to be re-prioritized. Take at least a little time to re-prioritize everything else on paper. This exercise will free your mind to focus on what is most important now, rather than continuing to be thinking about all the other things you will have to do later.

Reflect afterwards. After the deadline is passed, make sure to learn from the experience. You might determine changes in processes or your routine that might reduce the number of future tight deadlines; but beyond that reflect back on your responses to and the choices you made as you worked to meet the deadline. It is quite likely you will learn something to make you more effective in the future. If you don’t make the time to reflect, those lessons may never be learned or applied.

This gives you eight ideas to proactively deal with deadlines. Any of them will help, taken together you have a comprehensive strategy for getting more of the right work done in the impossibly short amount of time available.

Some Final Thoughts For Leaders

Before I go – if you lead, manage or supervise others, there are two additional things I hope you will do.

1. Share these ideas with your team. You aren’t the only one facing deadlines! Helping them learn some new strategies will likely help their productivity (and therefore everyone’s success) greatly.
2. Remember that you might be the source of some of the deadlines! Think about (and even ask them for their feedback) about how often you are the source of the deadlines. Perhaps the best thing you can do is make sure you aren’t the cause of the stress, frustration and deadline yourself.

I’ve long been fascinated by the mindsets and actions people have at the end of one year and the start of the next. The phenomenon of the New Year’s Resolution is just one part of this fascination. There is something about the turning of the calendar that makes many of us optimistic, hopeful, and ready to do something new and positive.

I am all for that energy and momentum, yet so many people let that energy and those positive intentions slip through their fingers far too quickly. While there is nothing truly different about setting new goals and trying new things on January 1st vs. October 12th or April 7th, we tend to look at it differently. And because of that, I want to help you hold that energy and maintain that focus not for a few days, but help you translate that into the best year of your life.

I want to support you in reaching your goals, so I will use this time of hope and fresh thinking as the springboard to help you (and your team or organization) achieve in ways you never have before.

Enter the Start Today! How to Make your Next 12 Months Your Best 12 Months teleseminar. On January 8th at 2 pm ET I will share with you key strategies and approaches that will support you in not just setting goals but reaching them.

After all, that is why we set goals to start with, right?

Whatever area of your business, professional or personal life, this 60 minutes can be the best investment you make in yourself and your future this year.

Within the first 15 minutes I will share with you the formula that ties all of it together and gives you the roadmap you need to create the results you want.

It isn’t hard.

In fact, using the formula is fun because it is always fun when we see results from our efforts. And this formula and all of the strategies and tools I will share with you will give you results – perhaps the best results of your life.

If you think goal achievement is too hard, you aren’t willing to try some powerful strategies or you think you already have it figured out, please don’t join me; because your negativity and your existing mindset will keep you from seeing how powerful these ideas can be for you.

However, if you are interested in reaching more goals and having more fun for yourself or with your team, you need to join me.

I look forward to “seeing” you on this call, and sharing some special bonuses with you. You can learn much more and register here.

It may be my least favorite Christmas song (and I’m sorry if it is now stuck in your head), but two years ago I created a series of 12 blog posts inspired by the song. In the song 12 gifts are given, and in the series I gave all leaders who read them 12 gifts as well.

The best thing about these gifts is that they were designed as gifts to be given to leaders, and through use, shared with those they led.

Specifically each day presented a question for you to ask – your answer helping you build your leadership skills, get greater results, and help your team too. They were truly created to be gifts for everyone involved.

I know I am sharing this a bit closer than 12 days before Christmas, but I believe when you start reading and receiving these gifts, that won’t be a problem. You can read them once/day, or you can “binge” and read as many as you want in a row, though like most binging, that won’t likely lead to the best result.

In the end, I suggest reading a couple today, a couple tomorrow, and then you’ll soon be on the one/day routine. (And, while these are framed around Christmas, the timing doesn’t really matter – these are gifts that keep on giving.)

You can read my initial post written on 12/12/12, when I kicked this off, here. All of the posts are listed on that post, but each of the 12 days is listed below here as well.

• The 12th Day – The Gift of Change
• The 11th Day – The Gift of your Ear . . . and Your Heart
• The 10th Day – The Gift of Relationships
• The 9th Day – The Gift of Feedback
• The 8th Day – The Gift of (Delighted) Customers
• The 7th Day – The Gift of (Other) Focus
• The 6th Day – The Gift of Creativity
• The 5th Day – The Gift of Meaning
• The 4th Day – The Gift of Questions
• The 3rd Day – The Gift of Accountability
• The 2nd Day – The Gift of Improvement
• The 1st Day – The Gift of Goals

If the title of this caught your eye, and you want better organizational results, you can stop reading and just get your copy of this Special Report right now.

If not, consider this . . .

Are you hiring or promoting more supervisors because of business growth?

Do you require new supervisors due to retirements or promotion of other leaders?

Or do you need more new supervisors due to other sorts of turnover?

There are plenty of reasons you may find yourself with new leaders in your ranks, some positive, some maybe less so.

I’ve written a Special Report with the same title as this post to help you if you find yourself in this situation. If you are a C-Level leader, an HR leader, a Division, Business Unit or Department leader, this Special Report is for you.

In this information-filled and practical Report, you will begin to understand (perhaps in new ways) the massive impact your new supervisors will have on the short and long term results of your organization and why time spent in helping them be more successful could be one of the most powerful investments your organization could make now and in the future.

If you see yourself in anything you have just read, for the sake of your organization, your leaders and all of your employees, please download this Special Report.