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40-The Quarterly Review

Season #3

EPISODE SUMMARY

Most annual plans fall apart quietly. Goals get set in January, and by November the team says it "ran out of time." Jody Holland and Meghan Slaughter explain why that happens and how a disciplined quarterly review fixes it. They cover breaking annual goals into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily targets, putting facts before causes, scoring every quarter on two measures, and making progress visible so the whole team stays accountable.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Break the year down. Know where you need to be at the end of each quarter, month, and week. Jody says that once he started tracking revenue by the week, he hit his annual targets almost every year.
  • Busy is not the same as productive. Celebrate the outcomes you achieved, not how hard you worked.
  • Look at the gain before the gap. Start each review with what you accomplished and learned. Then look honestly at what you missed.
  • Facts first, then causes. Compare what you said you'd do with what you actually did, and leave blame out of it. Then check which assumptions turned out to be wrong.
  • Score every quarter twice. First ask whether you got the results. Then ask whether you executed the way you said you would.
  • Executed well but missed the results = your strategy needs to change.
  • Got the results without executing = you got lucky, and you can't count on that again.
  • Executed well and got the results = keep doing it.
  • Change the behavior, not the label. Ask for specific, measurable changes, like "arrive 15 minutes earlier," not "fix your personality."
  • Keep a scoreboard. A whiteboard, paper, or a tool like Monday.com all work. If you can't see the score, you can't change your strategy at halftime.
  • Do your 20 Mile March. Make steady progress every day in good conditions and bad. That beats bursts of effort.
  • Make your work visible. When the team shares daily actions and wins, nobody wants to let anyone else down. Leaders set the pace.


QUOTABLE MOMENTS

"We didn't run out of time. We just didn't have the right priorities." – Jody

"Without something measurable, you don't know if you're actually going to be successful." – Meghan

"Am I really committed to getting better results this next quarter? If the answer is no, then I like my excuses better." – Jody

"Celebrating our wins together gives us a reason to not let each other down." – Jody


RESOURCES MENTIONED

- The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran
- The Gap and The Gain by Dan Sullivan
- Good to Great and Great by Choice by Jim Collins
- Monday.com, Goodreads, and Fable
- Previous episode: The Habits for Success


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Become The Leader You Would Follow.