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FROM MARK
Spring break is still a few weeks away in our house, but my son has already started the countdown. The focus he’s applying to the calendar right now is… impressive (and yet strangely absent when homework is involved). There’s something powerful about a scheduled pause. Just seeing it on the calendar changes the energy. It creates permission to reset, and occasionally, people actually take it.
But inside most organizations, this time of year lands differently because late March isn’t just the end of Q1, it’s the unofficial start of the year. Budgets came in late. Leadership shifts slowed decisions. Priorities took longer to settle than anyone planned (or will admit). None of that is the issue. What happens next is.
Instead of acknowledging the delayed start, organizations do what they do best: pretend it didn’t happen. A full year of work gets compressed into the three quarters that remain. Everything from Q1 gets pushed into Q2, landing squarely in the laps of leaner teams, tighter budgets, and efficiency targets that never seem to go down.
By September, the outcome is predictable: half-finished initiatives, exhausted teams, and a quiet sense the year got away from you.
And then we all act surprised.
A real reset requires something most organizations avoid: honesty. Not as an excuse. Not to lower the bar. But because your people already know the year didn’t really start in January, the pace is off, and the math isn’t mathing.
And naming that doesn’t create tension, it releases it.
So as you head into whatever version of spring is coming, consider a different kind of reset. If the year really starts now, then the question isn’t how to catch up, it’s what actually deserves to get finished.
Warm regards,
Founder/Managing Principal/Spring Breaker-in-Waiting, IA
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