Happy New Year! It’s resolution season. How do you avoid the let-down of resolutions earnestly created in January that may not last until February? Instead of setting resolutions, I recommend a simple life philosophy that will stick. Comp Yourself.
That’s it. That’s the entire philosophy.
Did I do better this year than I did last year?
For example, at work to measure my own comp performance, I would ask myself…
- Did I contribute more?
- Did I do a better job?
- Did I take on more projects?
- Did I add more value?
- Did I learn more?
- Did I get a promotion?
- Did I get a pay increase?
- Did I receive more praise?
- Did I get better feedback from peers?
- Did I feel better about my skills?
This isn’t the official company performance appraisal, it is your own gauge. There were years, despite receiving excellent performance feedback from my boss (using the company review process), when using my own comp performance measures, I felt stagnant. What you consider “better” is entirely up to you.
When you feel you haven’t grown enough, put a plan together that will challenge you and push you where you want to be… Just like you would for an underperforming store location.
Hopefully this doesn’t feel too daunting. Improvement doesn’t necessarily require huge change. Alan Weiss, in his book Million Dollar Consulting, suggests the 1% Solution:
Now, that’s an interesting and manageable approach.
“Comping yourself” is an idea a few of us came up with some years ago while working as marketers at Starbucks. We used comp performance to measure our stores, why not for ourselves?
Author and blogger John Moore documents how we practiced this philosophy in a chapter of his book “Tribal Knowledge: Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks Corporate Culture” In fact, he provides the entire chapter, Always Measure Your Comparable Job Performance on his blog for free.
Happy New Year!
indeed, it’s always good to “check” yourself. it’s a good time to look back at last year and make some corrections for the new year.
here’s to a great new year!
Interesting perspective, Comp yourself versus goals not sustainables by a serious plan is not a good reference but using that checklist give you an essence of a real life performance evolution.
Interesting perspective, Comp yourself versus goals not sustainables by a serious plan is not a good reference but using that checklist give you an essence of a real life performance evolution.
Good advice, Paul. This does assume one thing… that people want to do better. Have you ever worked with those who are satisfied just coasting through life in a mediocre mindset? I’ve experienced many workers like this.