More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
November 18 - November 30, 2025
Once you have finished with the 12 week goal, shift to their tactical plan.
Team Planning As a manager, or as a member of a team, sometimes it is necessary to create joint goals and plans. Often effective team planning can more effectively leverage talent and resources than individual plans can.
Finalize the goal with the team and ensure that they own the goal jointly and individually.
Next, brainstorm the tactics needed to reach each goal; then, select the smallest possible number of the brainstormed tactics that, when executed, will attain the goal.
Individual accountability for tactics is critical to drive the team execution process.
There are two last bits of advice when planning for teams: First, don’t overestimate the capacity of your team. The best team plans are succinct and contain the minimal amount of activity to reach the team goal—no more. Second, don’t front-load the plan; instead, if possible, balance the actions over the entire 12 weeks.
Pitfall 1: Your 12 week plan does not align with your long-term vision.
Pitfall 2: You aren’t staying focused Focus is critical. If you establish too many goals, you end up with too many priorities and too many tactics to effectively execute.
Imagine if every 12 weeks you identified one or two key areas and went after those with passion and focus.
The 12 Week Year is designed to help you focus on a few key areas and make significant progress in a short period of time.
If you can accomplish the goal with four tactics, then you don’t need five. Brainstorm all the tactics you can, and then select the critical few.
Pitfall 4: You don’t keep it simple.
Pitfall 5: You don’t make it meaningful.
If your plan is not meaningful to you, then you will struggle to execute it. Be certain that you focus on the areas that matter most.
Installing Process Control The 12 Week Year starts with a vision, and from that vision, you establish a set of 12 week goals. Based on those goals you develop a 12 week plan. Then comes process control.
If you are going to achieve what you are capable of, you can’t leave it up to willpower alone. Process control uses tools and events to create support structures that can augment, and in some cases take the place of, willpower.
Weekly Plans The weekly plan is a powerful tool that translates the 12 week plan into daily and weekly action.
Keep in mind that the weekly plan is a derivative of your 12 week plan.
Because the weekly plan is driven by the 12 week plan, which is connected to your long-term vision, you can be confident that the actions it contains are, by default, the most important actions of the week.
Don’t Go It Alone The second element of process control is peer support.
George Shinn, the owner of the Charlotte Hornets basketball team, once said: “There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.”
We recommend forming a group of two to four committed individuals to meet weekly. We call these meetings WAMs, which stands for Weekly Accountability Meeting.
The WAM is a critical element of process control. It’s a short meeting that is typically held on Monday morning after everyone has had a chance to plan their week and it lasts approximately 15 to 30 minutes.
The WAM is used to confront breakdowns, recognize progress, create focus, and encourage action.
Weekly Accountability Meeting Agenda I. Individual Report Out: Each member states how they are tracking against their goals and how well they executed. Here are four areas to focus on: a. Your results for the 12 Week Year to date. b. Your weekly execution score. c. Intentions for the coming week. d. Feedback and suggestions from the group. II. Successful Techniques: As a group, discuss what’s been working well and how to incorporate these techniques into one another’s plan. III. Encouragement.
My advice: attend a WAM and stick to your plan, and the 12 Week Year will work!
As teams grow, you'll likely have to divide the group to ensure a quick and relevant meeting.
The Weekly Routine The only way you will reach your 12 week goals is by taking action on your plan each day.
The weekly plan and the WAM are two steps in a three step process called the weekly routine.
The weekly routine consists of three simple, yet powerful steps: 1. Score your week 2. Plan your week 3. Participate in a WAM
Step 1: Score Your Week In Chapter 16 you will see how the 12 Week Year enables you to effectively measure your execution through a weekly scorecard.
Step 2: Plan Your Week So far, we have talked in detail about the importance of having and working from a weekly plan. If you are using Achieve!, the system will automatically populate your weekly plan with the tactics that are due this week. If you are using a paper system like Freehand, then you will need to refer to your 12 week plan, pull out those tactics that are due this week, and transfer them to your weekly plan.
Step 3: Participate in a WAM As I discussed previously, your probability of success greatly increases when you meet regularly with a small group of peers.
The steps are easy to do—and even easier not to do. If you really are serious about your goals, then commit to this weekly routine.
A plan between your ears is not nearly as effective as a plan on paper.
In our experience, you are 60 to 80 percent more likely to execute a written weekly plan than a plan that is in your head.
The 12 Week Year is a cultural change, a new way of operating. Lee Iacocca, former automotive CEO, said that the speed of the leader is the speed of the team.
The next step is for you to individually inspect all of your direct reports’ habits. Do they have a plan each week? Are they scoring each week? Are they actively participating in a WAM?
You will want to formally review their weekly plans and scorecards with them at least once a month in a scheduled one-on-one coaching session.
Occasionally, you may want to sit in on one of their WAM meetings and provide some coaching and encouragement.
Sounds like thr WAM meeting is peer-led. Managers only join occasionally. Interesting.
Pitfall 2: You include all your tasks.
Do not dilute your plan by adding all the lower-level activities that you do in the course of your day. Keep the weekly plan for only strategic items and commitments.
Pitfall 4: You add tactics weekly. Keep in mind that a weekly plan is essentially a one-twelfth slice of your 12 week plan.
Pitfall 5: You don’t use it to guide your day. Once you’ve created your weekly plan, you will want to use it daily to keep you on track with the activities that are most important to achieving your goals.
Truly effective measurement combines both lead and lag indicators to provide the comprehensive feedback needed for informed decision making.
The lag indicators are the end results, and your 12 week goals are the ultimate lagging indicators. If you are tracking progress towards your goals, then you are tracking lag indicators.
Lead indicators are the things that happen early in the execution process. They are the things that drive the lags. Most people are pretty good at tracking the lag indicators, but the opportunity for growth is usually the greatest with the lead indicators.
With the 12 Week Year, we have you establish 12 week goals, so at the very least you will have a success measure that is no longer than 12 weeks.
12 Week Goal #1 Lead and Lag Indicators ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ 12 Week Goal #2 Lead and Lag Indicators ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ 12 Week Goal #3 Lead and Lag Indicators ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________
...more
As we discussed in the first section of the book, the most effective lead indicator you can have is a measure of your weekly execution.
Your outcomes are driven by your actions.
