Pretend that it's one year from today and you are throwing a party to celebrate the #1 accomplishment that your team pulled off this year. You are celebrating one great thing -- the #1 thing that you asked them to deliver. And they did it.

With that opening teaser, the Just Tell Me How To Manage blog pulls back to the present, the outset of a year, at which presumably you have developed plans for 2009, with a main goal. It then asks:

• Do your key people know that this is your #1 expectation?
• If you asked each one to talk about #1, would everyone give the same answer?
• Does your #1 get enough focus, time, energy, learning, thinking and doing from each person?
• Do you spend enough time talking to your people about #1, finding new ways to make it happen, and doing all that you can to make it happen?
• Can everyone talk about #1 the way you want him or her to?
• Have you spent time with everyone who has a role in accomplishing #1?
• Have you allocated enough money?

"If not, why not? It's a year from today. Time is running out," the writer concludes.

See: http://www.justtellmehowtomanage.com/2008/09/1.html

The sour economic news will have many business owners fretting as we enter this year. But advertising guru Roy H. Williams says the coming year will be fun, adventure-filled and profitable for people who have their wits about them. "A number of small business owners are positioning themselves to overtake their much larger rivals. Will one of those companies be yours?" he asks in his Monday Morning Memo e-newsletter.

Companies flounder, he says, when they make two mistakes. They take their finger off the pulse of the customer. And they quit taking risks.

He cites General Motors and Circuit City but there are, of course, other examples. The lessons are that having the right product is more important than heritage and convenience, and, that success, like failure, is a temporary condition, so never assume you've arrived.

With the economy struggling, he notes that industry leaders are going into hunker-down mode. They're cutting back advertising, assuming everyone else will cut back as well. Now is the time for you to leapfrog your competitors, by powering up rather than throttling down. "When a leapfrogger sees a leader's brake lights, he hits the accelerator," declares Williams.

With that general advice, he adds three trends to be alert to in 2009:

• Frivolous purchases are being delayed. We'll buy what we need, but only after asking whether we really need it.
• We're buying fewer, but better, things. More attention is being paid to quality. Consumers want information that will help them select that quality.
• Sustainable living has becoming a prime motivator. The lifestyle of the 1980s and 1990s was "upwardly mobile" with exponents displaying "conspicuous consumption." The chosen lifestyle of the next generation will be sustainable, as they strive to live within means and embrace environmentally responsible practices.

See: www.mondaymorningmemo.com

Personal success coach Robin Sharma says we grow when we learn from experiences. "Being disciplined about your learning means that you schedule time to think about your craft," he writes in his Wisdom newsletter. That can come through a post-project debrief with your team, a quick review of the past month at a staff meeting, or some time writing in a journal.

For every experience, ask three questions:

• What happened? Describe the events and people involved.
• So what? What does the experience mean? Why is this important? Did it reveal a strength or weakness?
• Now, what? What will you do differently? What is the essence of this lesson?

See: http://www.robinsharma.com/life_coach_ic_blog.htm

Technology writer Joel Bruckenstein chose two products from the many issued last year as the best ones to latch onto as you begin a new year.

The first is a wireless keyboard/mouse combination, the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500 Revolution. He has found that once a user learns their way around the product, and customizes it to their needs, an increase in productivity follows. "If you are currently using an inferior product, such as the base equipment that comes with most computers today, I'd estimate that the minimum improvement you'll experience is in the neighbourhood of five per cent," he writes on Morningstar.com.

The other winner was CardScan Executive, a scanner that "reads" a business card you have been given, allowing you to store it in Outlook, ACT! or another database. If you regularly collect a lot of business cards, it can be a huge timesaver.

See: http://advisor.morningstar.com/articles/article.asp?docId=15953

• For the next week, get to work 30 minutes earlier and leave 30 minutes later. Use that extra time to knock some big things off your To-Do list as you start the year.
  (Source: http://www.GreatManagement.org)
• To help you achieve your top goal for this year, close your eyes and imagine the pleasure of having achieved the goal. Then close your eyes and imagine the pain of having failed to achieve it. Let those feelings-- of pleasure and pain -- drive you towards the goal.
  (Source: Limitlessunits.com)
• Biggest waste in marketing, according to consultant Eran Livneh, is spending money to reach the wrong people.
  (Source: http://www.marketingprofs.com/6/livneh5.asp)
• In an economic downturn, companies must take the view that there is no such thing as a fixed cost. Look at how to scale overhead down when volume drops, notably in areas such as energy, supplies, rent, and leases.
  (Source: http://michael-roberto.blogspot.com/)
• Don't be crude and try to blast by the gatekeepers to executives when selling. Speak to the person as if they are the executive, since their job is to protect the boss's calendar. Turn the gatekeeper into an ally.
  (Source: http://sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com/selling/2008/03/getting-past-ga.html)

Truly understanding and connecting with key client/customer audiences, staff and other stakeholders will be one key to success this year. While this focus probably reflects an 8020Info priority in any year, we have recently noticed several clients paying more attention to this issue. We see:

• Organizations double-checking their traditional planning assumptions. Have client needs, wants and motivations changed? Are customers assessing value and risk in a different way? Are staff more concerned about leadership and internal communications? With a challenging economic climate in 2009, we need to know whether clients, customers and staff are adjusting their attitudes and behaviours in significant ways.
• Managers paying more attention to resistance to change. As they implement change projects, managers must deal with the mindset of their stakeholders. These audiences may fear losing something of value, misunderstand the change and its implications, believe the change doesn't make sense for the organization, and/or have a low personal tolerance for change. Before you can choose the best tool(s) to address these issues (such as education, communications, training, negotiation, or participatory involvement), you first have to understand the audience.
• Marketers critiquing their ongoing strategies to connect with the mindset and media habits of target audiences. The combinations are staggering when you consider the number of ways various target audiences can be matched with their favoured communications channels, from traditional print and broadcast networks to blogs and social networking sites. As one of the Zingers above noted, marketing to the wrong people is a big waste of time and money. But even when you have identified the right people, the wrong channels or a poorly positioned message will cause you to miss the mark. Marketers who are well connected to their audiences will know how to choose the best approach.
• Leadership, management and project teams revisiting their charters. These teams want to ensure focus, clarity of purpose, scope and context, effective ways of working together, and agreement on measures of success. To excel in 2009, everyone must be pulling together toward the same goals.

The themes that emerge provide us with potential clues to success in 2009 -- to revisit past assumptions, truly understand our teams and audiences, and really connect with them before making key decisions.

Around here in January, we are prone to making resolutions -- to manage our time more effectively and, especially, to clear out all the "stuff" that seems to have accumulated in the office over the past year. (Funny, the list looks much like the one we made last year, and the year before.) In that frame of mind, we enjoyed reading productivity expert Julie Morgenstern's latest book, When Organizing Isn't Enough.

The four steps of her SHED process (Separate the Treasures, Heave the Trash, Embrace Your Identity and Drive Yourself Forward) go well beyond wisdom about simply cleaning out your junk. We particularly enjoyed the question: Who are you without your stuff? She focuses on the emotional attachments we have to our clutter -- whether that's physical clutter, a jam-packed appointments calendar, or the root habits that cause them -- procrastination, perfectionism, workaholism, chronic lateness or mindless escapes. For more, see http://www.juliemorgenstern.com/.

Regardless of how we make out with our SHED effort, we've also resolved to pick up Morgenstern's previous bestseller -- Never Check E-Mail in the Morning!

"Ambition is a dream with a V-8 engine."

   - Elvis Presley