New Year, who dis?
Every January, we do the same strange little ritual. We call it a “fresh start” and pretend the calendar is magical. It isn’t, but that doesn’t mean the rollover can’t be valuable.
Look, it doesn’t look like 2026 is going to be the stable year we haven’t had for a decade, so let’s not fool ourselves. There will be volatility and risk aplenty, but any good trader will tell you that with volatility also comes opportunity.
Next year will be filled with risk, sure. But if there is no way to avoid the risk, what exactly is the benefit of thinking and acting conservatively? What the new year is actually good for is inspection that leads to action.
Call it placebo, call it the budget cycle, but the new year is perfect for setting aside some time to work ON the business, not just IN the business. Start finding new processes, systems, and organizational paradigms. Don’t go looking for a magic fix but commit to trying new ways of thinking and executing.
As I’ve discussed before, what usually slows us down isn’t a dramatic failure. It’s a pattern, a “this is just how we do it” that slowly hardens into a wall. You’re busy. You’re trying to keep customers happy, keep payroll clean, keep the wheels from falling off. You don’t wake up thinking, “Today I’d like to accidentally repeat last year’s mistakes.” You just do what worked last time. Until it doesn’t. The duct tape works until the load is too heavy.
What did you normalize last year that you shouldn’t keep?
Not what went wrong once. What went wrong repeatedly and got excused?
If you only do one thing this week: name three patterns you can’t afford to carry into the new year.
Put this on your calendar. Actually do it. No perfect setting required. Have a meeting with your leadership, board, counselors all and examine the failure points.
Look for the quiet drains: rework, repeat calls, duplicate approvals, constant “quick questions,” meetings that could’ve been messages, messages that should’ve been decisions. Were there recurring customer complaints? Did someone fail to realize that a task was their job … repeatedly?
If something keeps resurfacing, it’s not a one-off. It’s a system.
Address the things you avoided because they felt annoying, political, or “not urgent”. Be honest. This is usually the thing that quietly taxes everything else.
Now that you have the list comes the hard part. Commit to trying one thing. You don’t have to build Rome in a day, but it is imperative that you don’t avoid changing anything just so you don’t rock the boat. You won’t get it all right all the time, but that’s ok, because the old way wasn’t working.
A quick warning though, because the new year can make people reckless.
Don’t launch a new system or process just to avoid a hard conversation.
If the real issue is someone is in the wrong seat, a team that is afraid to tell the truth, or leadership keeps changing priorities midstream, then no productivity hack will save you.
- Dylan
WWID
I don’t know how many of you remember the “What Would Jesus Do” bracelets, but as someone who grew up in the South, trust me, rubber WWJD bracelets were everywhere. No matter how you feel about that particular advice I know that one of the most important questions that someone trying to grow a business can ask themselves is “What Would I Do?” Sounds simple enough, but every leader identifies with that moment when the questions are big and doubt makes trusting yourself feel impossible.
The stress of “getting it right,” whether you are starting, growing, or shepherding a business, is overwhelming. That pressure is everywhere, and the unknown costs of mistakes loom large, keeping you up all night like monsters hiding in your childhood closet.
There is an entire library’s worth of books written to tell you what to do next. There are even whole books written about individual decisions depending on what stage of the business you are in. How overwhelming is that? I’m not saying books and consultants can’t help, far from it. A good counselor helps you cut through the noise, but they do not force a choice and move on to the next project. Advice and counsel are good things, otherwise, why would I be doing this at all? But one thing none of these books will tell you is that you are the one who has to live with and implement the choices you make.
So inaction is not an option. If you’re reading this, we agree on that much. What is a leader to do? Whose advice should you follow? Well, the first step is for you to look at the metaphorical rubber bracelet and ask yourself, “What Would I Do?”
If you’re running your own business, it is because you are passionate about what you do and, at some point, have received some pretty positive feedback about your ability to do it. Remember that. If you were hired by a board to run a business, I’m willing to bet that you have a trail of successes behind you. Remember that.
In a sea of advice it is easy to be paralyzed by choice. And all of those choices may be reasonable. That is part of the problem. But you have to implement the systems you choose (software, project management, org structure), and you have to work with the people you hire. No decision you make will ever be perfect. So it’s important to choose the systems that will be easiest to iterate. Those are always going to be the ones you feel most comfortable with. The most important thing is to make choices and to make sure they are clear ones, for you and the entire organization.
When clients bring me in for project work, I am not there to force any particular method or solution onto them. I am there to help them sort the noise, choose an approach that fits their people, and then turn “What Would I Do” into a concrete way of working that everyone can follow.
The point is that at the end of the day, you are the one who has to run the business, and you are the only one who knows it the way you do. Let your gut be your guide, make clear choices, and never let chasing the perfect become an excuse to avoid doing the good. If you want help sorting the options and backing your own judgment with a workable plan, that is exactly the work I do.