How The Last Month of This Year Can Setup a Winning 2025

Read Time: 2 minutes.

How you start often sets the tone for how you finish.

But it turns out the opposite is true as well:

How you finish determines how you start.

While everyone else thinks about their New Year’s resolutions, you can start building the habits that determine your team’s success.

• Want to win the morning? Decide your day the night before.

• Want to win the next year? Make some hard calls before this year ends.

Our goal is always to make the MGMT Playbook highly practical. You could pick any edition to implement, and your team would likely be better for it.

But let’s make it easier on you.

Our mantra for the year has been, “Do half as much, twice as well.”

So as you count down to the 12 days of Christmas, we offer you the 6 days of December.

Feel free to hum along…

6 - These Six Skills Make Up The 80/20 of Management

• Manage Performance

• Manage Potential

• Manage Yourself

• Manage Conflict

• Manage Output

• Manage Up

We’ll train you on all of the above in our last MGMT Fundamentals program for 2024.

Join 65 other leaders when we kick off on December 3rd. We meet Tuesday through Friday for one hour each day. Includes bonus group coaching from me on Fridays.

5 - The Five Ways To Steal Back Your Time

If you’re constantly behind, staying late, or missing deadlines, the problem isn’t your to-do list. It’s probably your “to-don’t” list.

• Cancel Meetings

• Make Decisions Faster

• Solve Problems at Root Cause

• Practice Continuous Improvement

• Find Ways To Unlock The Compounding

4 - The Four Soft Skills That Accelerate Anyone’s Career

I dropped this post on LinkedIn this morning. It will easily be the most viral thing I’ve ever posted on that platform. Wild!

3 - My Three Non-Negotiable Management Practices

Not spending enough quality time with your people, strip your engagement back to the basics:

• Set Clear Expectations

• Invert Yours 1:1s

• Feedback

2 - The Two Tactics To Take On Any New Team

The new year often means taking on a new team. Here’s how I’d do it:

• 20 Questions to Size Up Your New Team

• Your First 100 Days Leading A New Team

1 - The One Choice To Rule Them All

This time of year is a great time for reflection. Chris Dixon’s essay is timeless:

• Are you climbing the wrong hill?

What You Missed This Week

Did you miss last week’s Monday MGMT Minute? 

📌 Get smart about dealing with risk.

And here are our 5 most popular posts from this week:

1. Control What You Can Control

2. 7 Interview Red Flags

3. Questions to Ask in Your 1:1s

4. The Motivation Playbook

5. Stop Giving Feedback

Our goal is to build a community of 1 million thoughtful, curious leaders.

Your ♻️ reposts on any or all of the above are always appreciated.  

Thank you for reading. Appreciate you!

Dave & Mar