How will you use the summer – Individually and Organizationally?

Happy Summer. The school year will finish soon. The weather will allow for more outdoor activities. Bosses (hopefully) understand that their employees will be taking time off. Employees will want to take vacations, staycations, and mental health days.

I believe this issue has two angles to it … individual and organizational. What do you plan to do during this 2+ month break? There are no right or wrong answers here, but your responses do say something about your goals, planning, and life integration (I’m using that term now instead of life balance).

PBI’s “Horizontal Maslow” (a simple exercise that helps you define the time and attention you are giving to 14 major life areas) is a good place to start. The result is a bar graph that helps you identify where you feel you are doing well and where you want to make changes.

There are a number of ways to approach this challenge individually.  You could just let the summer happen. You might say “here are the 5 things I want to do”. You might to choose a goal and a process to accomplish that goal. As a coach, my suggestion is to at least give it some thought and write a few things down. If it’s not written, it’s not a commitment!

The organizational angle to this is different. That largely depends on where you are in the organization – owner, executive, manager, supervisor, or front-line employee.  As PBI’s founder and owner, I think about the full gamut of roles – reputation, getting new work, delighting customers on current work, safety, fiscal responsibility, staff/my development, strategic and scenario planning, etc.

A high-performance employee will think about some of those.  And … “How can I help make the organization better?”.

• Definitely with you own (or your team’s) self-development
• You could leverage your network to identify potential business opportunities or qualified candidates for the company … or
• You could volunteer to help the organization with some of its social or environmental causes

What am I (Jeff) going to do?

• I’m fully invested (with my team) to help make Prince William County’s 2025-28 Strategic Plan the best one ever
• I’m going to the Solheim Cup (the biggest event in women’s golf  – US vs. Europe)
• I’m preparing to present at the International City and County Managers Conference
• I want to see our grandchildren at least a couple of times, and
• I’m focusing my networking to potentially obtain work in New Zealand or Singapore

Hopefully this blog article has gotten you to think about being more intentional on how you will spend your summer.  As always, I’d enjoy chatting about this and sharing additional resources.