Improvement

A new year has arrived, and for me, this marks year five at Outlook. Year 5. Time flies and yet it doesn't. When I reflect back on how I operated five years ago, versus how I operate today, there's major differences. I've really tried to work hard on deficiencies in my leadership since that time. I felt I've made improvements in many areas, yet there's so much more where I need to grow.

Our theme this year is improvement. I've been quite impressed with staff's personal goals and their accountability. Real time and effort was spent on thinking about how they can grow. I want every staff member to grow both personally and professionally.

I'm an ardent student of Stephen Covey's work and he talks about that we can't have sustained public improvement until we have private improvement.

What does that mean?

It means that we must work on ourselves first before it can really show publicly. One staff member I met with in regards to goals had very private goals, goals that really were about private improvement. When I noted this when talking to the staff member, the response was: I need to improve in those areas so I can be a better employee.

It was an enlightening moment because the person realized that if we want to become better at anything on the outside, we have to work on the inside. We have to be better at understanding each other, patient with each other, loyal to each other, etc.

It is only then that we can have sustained public improvement.