Start the Year With Shared Focus

Hi Reader,

There is something uniquely energizing about the beginning of a new year. Leadership teams re-enter the work hopeful, motivated, and ready to make meaningful progress. But hope without intention rarely leads to alignment, and it rarely leads to meaningful results.

One of the most common patterns we see in executive teams is this: they begin the year with a lack of clarity on what their most important shared goals are. Sometimes the CEO has it in their head, but it's not nearly as common that the entire team is clear on their top goals, much less their strategies to achieve them.

Without a clear set of top-level, thematic objectives, even well-intentioned planning becomes siloed. Each department pulls toward what makes sense to them. People throughout the organization end up rowing hard, but not necessarily rowing together.

High-Performing Leadership Teams Start the Year With Shared Focus

In At the Heart of Work, we describe Focus as the leadership team’s ability to establish, protect, and communicate the priorities that matter most. It is the discipline of choosing with intention and aligning the organization around those choices.

Teams that excel at creating focus do something most teams never slow down to do. They take time at the beginning of the year to clarify a small set of shared strategic objectives that guide the leadership team’s work. Not just department goals. Not just personal resolutions - but the leadership team’s goals. The essential outcomes that require shared leadership to achieve.

When executive teams do this and then communicate those priorities clearly, the odds of meaningful impact increase dramatically compared to teams that do not.

Why the Beginning of the Year Matters So Much

January offers leadership teams a window of opportunity that only comes once a year. It is a rare moment when:

People are most receptive to direction
Energy is high and clean slates are available
There is genuine hope that this year will be different
The tyranny of the urgent has not yet filled every corner of the calendar

If leadership teams do not establish focus now, they risk spending the rest of the year reacting instead of leading. Focus is not about doing more. It is about doing the right work, at the right time, together.

When teams don’t establish their Annual Focus, they spend the year negotiating priorities on the fly. Tension grows from the lack of clarity. Leaders unintentionally create confusion as focus shifts from month to month.

How to Create Shared Focus as a Leadership Team

Shared focus does not emerge accidentally. It is designed through intention and protected with discipline.

1. Create Space Away From the Noise: Set aside time for a full-day off-site early in the year. Getting out of the day-to-day allows leaders to shift from reacting to thinking together.

2. Start by Looking Back: Use the first half of your time to reflect on the year behind you. Review progress, name what worked and what did not, and surface the lessons that matter most.

3. Let the Learning Shape the Year Ahead: Based on those insights, identify the few outcomes that truly require shared leadership this year. Keep the list short and meaningful.

4. Commit as a Team: Before leaving the room, ensure the focus is truly shared. Name owners, agree on how progress will be reviewed, and clarify what will be deprioritized to protect focus.

What Shared Focus Looks Like in Practice

A leadership team with clear annual strategic objectives can answer these questions with confidence:

What are the three to five strategic objectives we need to make meaningful progress in this year?
What does success look like for each one?
Who is responsible for stewarding each objective?
What milestones will signal progress?
What must we protect or stop doing to make room for this focus?

Let This Be the Year Your Team Leads With Focus

The beginning of a new year is full of possibility. But possibility becomes power only when it is focused. Your team has the opportunity to set the tone for the entire organization. By choosing a few shared strategic objectives, you create a rallying point that turns scattered effort into momentum.

As you step into 2026, take the time to set that clarity together. A few hours of thoughtful alignment now can unlock a year of meaningful progress. Your team is capable of extraordinary things when it is rowing in the same direction.

-Shaun & Joe

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