First week back. The temptation is to hit the ground running.
I’ve learned to resist that temptation.
The January trap
Everyone starts the year with momentum. Energy from the break. Pressure from targets. Urgency to make progress.
That energy is valuable. But energy without direction is just motion. And motion isn’t progress.
The teams that win the year aren’t the ones who start fastest. They’re the ones who start right.
Organise before optimise
Before we optimise anything, we validate the foundation.
Are the metrics we’re tracking still the right ones? Last year’s KPIs might not match this year’s priorities. Markets change. Strategies shift. What we measured in December might not be what matters in January.
Are the assumptions we’re operating on still true? Customer segments that made sense six months ago might need revision. Territory structures that worked for a smaller team might need adjustment.
Are the processes we follow still serving us? Routines become rituals. We keep doing things because we’ve always done them, not because they’re still effective.
The first week is for asking these questions. Not for optimising systems that might be pointed in the wrong direction.
What deliberate pacing looks like
Monday: Review what we delivered last year. Not to celebrate. To understand. What worked? What didn’t? Where did we struggle? Where did we surprise ourselves?
Tuesday: Examine the assumptions embedded in this year’s plan. Challenge each one. “We assumed X. Is X still true?”
Wednesday: Talk to the team. Not about deliverables. About obstacles. What’s getting in the way? What do they need that they don’t have?
Thursday: Look at the data. Not the dashboards -the raw patterns. What’s changing that our reports don’t capture?
Friday: Plan the quarter. Not the year. Ninety days of focused priorities. Everything else can wait.
The validation principle
Validate before you optimise.
It’s tempting to start improving things immediately. We’re analysts. Improvement is what we do.
But optimising the wrong thing faster just gets you to the wrong place sooner.
The discipline of the first week is the discipline of checking direction before increasing speed.
It feels slow. It pays off in April.
What this week taught me
I spent most of this week not working on client deliverables. Not building dashboards. Not running analyses.
I spent it thinking. Questioning. Validating.
That’s not time wasted. That’s the foundation for everything else.
The year will be long. The work will be demanding. The pressure will be relentless.
Starting with a week of deliberate reflection won’t eliminate any of that. But it will ensure we’re running in the right direction when the pace picks up.
Organise before optimise. Validate before accelerate. Think before execute.
The teams that win the year understand this. The ones that burn out by March don’t.
Written by
Tiaan Keyser
Chief Analytics Officer & Founder at Herbst Group. Working with pharmaceutical commercial leaders across South Africa, Kenya, and Brazil to transform sales force effectiveness through evidence-based approaches.
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