The 100 Day Reset

Are you struggling to keep you and your team focused?

You may need to hit the reset button. In fact, as leaders, data suggests that we should be hitting the reset button every 100 days.

We have learned that it is very hard to sustain a group of people moving together and keep their focus, energy level, and passion longer than 100 days. This is when people tend to start running sideways with different ideas. To avoid this, do a reset to make sure you and your team are on target with where you need to be going.  

At Development and Leadership Coaching, we share the following 9 disciplines with our leaders to enable them to evaluate the past 100 days, and look ahead to the next 100 days.

1. Review Your Message
   
   Take some time to review the message you are communicating in your face to face meetings. It takes about 100 face to face conversations utilizing your message for you to really get a sense of the patterns in the varied responses. By then, you will have heard all the questions, input, and everything is going to start sounding pretty familiar. If you haven’t already clarified your message in writing, that’s where you will need to start. If you have already clarified your plan or overall message, pull it out and review it.Are you staying on message well? Where have you made things more complicated than you should? Based on the feedback that you have been getting, are there places that you need to simplify your message? Answering these questions helps you make sure you are staying on message and that your message is resonating based upon the feedback that you have been getting.

2. Update Your Prospect Planning
   
   We tell leaders that we coach to create a prospect list at the beginning of our work together. We take the time to review all of their prospects, and group them into categories of momentum. After 100 days, it is time to revisit that list.  By this time, you have had some meetings and are able to assess a little bit more where people are. Unless you have been
   looking at this list every week and regrouping these people, 100 days in is a great time to do this.

3. Review Your 6×6Another thing we encourage the leaders we work with to do is write down six things that are going to help the ministry move forward if they influence or accomplish them over the next six weeks. Bill Hybels calls this a 6×6.Every 100 days, review your 6×6. Hopefully, you completed it and have been working on it. Maybe you haven’t gotten through all six weeks, but look at your start date, end date, and evaluate how are you doing on those items.

4. Review Your Model WeekCreating a model week for yourself and the team member who helps manage your calendar is extremely helpful. This allows you to chunk out time and prioritize the things you need to focus on. Go back to your model week and review it every 100 days. You may need to make some adjustments. Look ahead on your calendar to the next 100 days, and see if you really are scheduling things based on your model week. You are not going to get it perfect every week, but are you really using it as a tool in your scheduling?

5. Weekly Scorecard NumbersA Weekly Scorecard tracks how many meetings you have scheduled, have had, and how many people are now on your follow up list because of those meetings. Every 100 days, look to see how many meeting slots you have blocked in the next six weeks, how many meetings you have actually scheduled in those blocks, how many meetings you had last week, and how many people are now on your follow-up list. You really need to know those numbers every week.  If you don’t know them every week, now is a great time to commit to change.

6. Review Your Follow-Up ListThe work of raising money is accomplished in the follow-up, so it’s extremely important to review your follow-up list every 100 days.As you look at this list, ask the following questions:
   • Who needs information that you need to get to them?
   • Who needs an update?
   • Who needs some encouragement from you by moving them towards a decision?
   • Who really needs to be asked now?
   • Who needs a clearer and more specific challenge to give?
   • Who needs to be thanked?
   • Who needs to be reported to?

7. Review Your Own Use of TimeIt is time to get gut level honest with yourself. Look at your use of time over the past 100 days or so and decide what needs to be eliminated, what has been distracting, and what the things are that you are doing that are not having the impact that they once did. These are things that are keeping you from doing the things that you know are going to move you forward. Now, eliminate them. Get them out of your life and ministry.

8. Automate and SimplifyThere are many ways to automate and simplify the things you do on a regular basis. Here are some practical ideas:
   • Create some email templates. Look through your sent email list. Create a template for anything that you find yourself sending over and over again.
   • Create some examples or workflows of how you are normally going to operate in doing the things your ministry does over and over again.
   • Create checklists in the task management system you use for projects that tend to repeat, so that you aren’t re-creating the wheel every time.
   • Check out tools like Zapier to create ways for things to automatically happen using technology without you having to spend time monitoring and making them happen on your own.

9. Make better use of your TEAM
   Whether your team is made up of staff or volunteers, think about how to use your team to really help you and everyone else be focused on the activities that you know move you forward to your vision?

I would love for you to share with me what you do with this. I guarantee that if you do these 9 things every 100 days, you and your team will move your vision forward with more focus, energy, and passion than you have ever experienced before.