It’s that time of the year when many people roll up their sleeves and decide to turn over a new leaf; it’s the season for New Year’s resolutions. If you have not made up your mind by now, however, chances are you won’t be sticking to your resolutions. Research shows that unless a resolution is well thought out, it doesn’t work. And the high failure rate is because most people do things at the last minute. According to G. Alan Marlatt, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, more than half of us — 65 per cent of his sample — make resolutions between December 28 and New Year’s day.

The average number of resolutions made is three. According to Marlatt, 40 per cent people succeed in achieving their top goal on the first try. Others try again. Full 17 per cent — the particularly persistent or the backsliders, as the case may be — succeed after six attempts.

Most resolutions relate to health, of course. But giving up smoking is no longer the top resolution (probably because there are fewer people smoking these days). Instead, dieting and exercising are rapidly moving up the ranks. According to University of Scranton psychology professor John Norcross, “get along with my mother-in-law” is also a favourite in the US.

Resolutions are a personal thing, though it is not unknown for a group to adopt a common resolution. They can be praiseworthy: an employees’ association at an MNC will be pooling in money through the year to help the disadvantaged. They can be banal: the members of a housing society have decided to collectively step up hygiene standards in their swimming pool. Suggested slogan: don’t P in the P.

New Year’s resolutions have a corporate dimension too. There is, of course, the simple fact that individual behaviour inevitably impacts the workplace. But considering that your job is where you spend a good part of your time, resolutions often pertain specifically to cubicle farms and other habitats of the working classes.

YahooJobs has this list of New Year’s resolutions that will “benefit your professional life”:

Resolve to get a promotion: use the first weeks of the New Year to speak with a human resources representative and your manager about your desire to advance.

Resolve to learn a new skill: investigate evening and weekend courses or at-home options and pursue a skill that will help you excel in your profession.

Resolve to make more money: set a goal to increase your income by a certain amount.

Resolve to expand your network: use January and February to reach out to people you haven’t spoken with lately. Not sure what to say? How about simply wishing them a happy New Year?

Resolve to update your résumé: having a current résumé at the ready is imperative in the age of email and instant messaging.

Apart from individuals, companies also have their own resolutions. One sort — the corporate resolution variety — needs to get passed at annual general meetings. They deal with issues like fund raising and the CEO’s salary and are weighty proposals. The more mundane stuff is an offshoot of the mission and vision statements.

Today, however, in a climate of crisis, corporate New Year’s resolutions are mainly of the penny-pinching type. The beleaguered General Motors has told its staff to shut down escalators and lifts at night. Office supplies now have pens only in three colours — black, red and blue. “It seems trivial, but when you have 1,00,000 employees using supplies, it adds up,” says a GM spokesperson.

There is no confirmation yet, but the grapevine in Bangalore says the proverbially parsimonious Azim Premji, chief of Wipro, has started monitoring the use of toilet paper rolls once again, as he was earlier wont to do. Individual Wiproites have made resolutions to stop using toilet paper; the more resolute will stop using the toilet.

Workplace resolutions

Make a point of getting together with your colleagues to carve a collective resolution in stone. But don’t agree on anything — don’t even talk in terms of action — until you’ve reflected on the past year. Here are several questions you can use in your work group to seed the dialogue:

If a headline and news article were written to capture our work group’s accomplishments for the year, what would they say?

Forget metrics and scorecards and all the measurable stuff for a moment. What are we plain old proud of from this past year?

What values were most important to us as the year began? What values seem to be paramount right now? Why the change?

What would we do differently at work if given the chance to circle back and relive one week of our choosing?

What did we learn at work this past year, and how did we learn it?

Did we stay in touch with our deep interests as individuals, and were we able to apply these passions in the workplace?

How well did we nurture a sense of community and teamwork while valuing and leveraging people’s unique knowledge, talents, skills and interests?

Source: Ring in the New Year with old year reflections, by Tom Terez