Eighty Working Days: How to Finish the Year Strong

Introduction

Every September, I have some version of the same conversation with CEOs and business owners. The goal they set in January is still on the wall. Nobody has taken it down, but if we are being honest, not many people still believe it is achievable. The plan for closing the gap usually sounds something like this: We’re going to push hard in the fourth quarter.

I have watched that plan fail for more than 30 years. “Push harder” may create a short burst of activity, but activity is not the same as progress. People work longer hours, more meetings get scheduled, and everyone feels a greater sense of urgency. Yet the few things that really determine the outcome often remain unclear, unmeasured, or buried under five new initiatives. Urgency without focus usually creates exhaustion, not execution.

This summer, I decided to look beyond my own experience. I wanted to know what the research actually says about people and companies that consistently reach their goals—not the latest slogan or another branded system, but the practices that have been tested and the conclusions that have held up. What I found was both encouraging and challenging. Finishing the year strong does not require a dramatic transformation, but it does require a level of focus and discipline that many leadership teams talk about without consistently practicing.

Leadership Qualities Matter—but They Are Not a Plan

We spend a great deal of time talking about the qualities of successful leaders: grit, vision, emotional intelligence, resilience, and a growth mindset. I have taught many of these ideas myself, and I still believe character, judgment, and self-awareness matter enormously. But none of them is a substitute for an operating rhythm.

Research on grit and growth mindset is more mixed—and the effects more modest—than the popular conversation sometimes suggests. That does not make those ideas worthless. It simply means that believing the right things about yourself will not, by itself, close a revenue gap, improve collections, reduce turnover, or get a critical project across the finish line.

The research kept bringing me back to something less glamorous and far more useful: what leaders and their teams do every week. That is good news. You are unlikely to change your personality in the next four months, but you can absolutely change the way you run your week.

What Consistently Works

Once I stripped away the academic language, I found five practices that showed up again and again.

1. Set a Specific, Challenging Goal

“Grow the business” is not a goal. Neither is “finish strong” or “do your best.” A useful goal has a clear result and a deadline. It is difficult enough to require real focus, but credible enough that the people responsible for it still believe their effort matters.

Decades of research by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham found that specific, challenging goals generally produce better performance than vague or easy ones. But there is an important condition: people must actually commit to the goal.

That sounds obvious, but think about how often leadership teams avoid the conversation. The number remains on the scorecard long after everyone has privately concluded that it is out of reach. Nobody wants to be the first person to say it.

A number that everyone has quietly stopped believing in is no longer a goal. It is a decoration. If the target you set in January is still achievable, recommit to it. If it is not, have the courage to say so and replace it with a number that is difficult, honest, and worth pursuing. That is not lowering the standard; it is restoring credibility.

2. Make the Commitment Visible

Private intentions are easy to renegotiate, while public commitments are harder to ignore. A large review led by Tracy Epton found that goal setting worked better when goals were made public and when people pursued them as part of a group. The practical lesson is simple: people are more likely to follow through when others know what they have committed to and when they know they will have to report back.

This is one of the reasons a good leadership team—or a strong peer group—can be so valuable. The group does not do the work for you. It makes it harder for you to hide from the work.

Once you reset the goal, say it out loud and put it in writing. Tell the company what matters most between now and December 31, and make sure every important number has one clear owner. If three people own the number, nobody owns the number.

3. Decide What You Will Do When the Plan Goes Off Track

Most plans describe what we hope will happen. Strong plans also anticipate what could go wrong. Researchers Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran call these “implementation intentions.” The term sounds technical, but the idea is not. I prefer to call them if-then plans:

If a predictable problem occurs, then I will take a specific action.

For example:

• If Monday’s report shows that collections are behind, then I will contact our 10 largest overdue accounts by Friday.
• If the sales pipeline falls below three times our remaining target, then I will join the next two pipeline reviews.
• If a key project misses a milestone, then the project owner will bring a recovery plan to the next leadership meeting.

Research reviews covering hundreds of tests have found that these plans help people turn intentions into action. They work because the decision is made before the pressure arrives.

Without an if-then plan, every setback creates a new debate. People wait, explain, hope, or schedule another meeting. With one, the next move is already clear.

4. Review Progress Every Week

You cannot manage a year-end goal by checking it at the end of the month. A major review led by Benjamin Harkin found that monitoring progress improved the likelihood of reaching a goal. The effect was stronger when people recorded their progress and shared it with someone else.

The lesson for a leadership team is not complicated. Build a one-page scorecard showing:

• The one or two results that matter most
• The latest actual result
• The year-end target
• The remaining gap
• The person who owns the number
• The next action

Review the same page at the same time every week. Thirty focused minutes should be enough. Do not cancel the meeting when things get busy; that is usually when you need it most.

I would allow only two questions when a number is behind:

1. What does the plan require us to do now?
2. What do you need to do it?

Those questions keep the conversation focused on decisions and support. They leave less room for storytelling, blame, or a long explanation of information everyone already knows.

5. Keep Feedback Focused on the Work

One of the findings that surprised me most came from a large review of feedback research by Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi. Across hundreds of findings, feedback did not always improve performance. In more than a third of the cases they studied, it made performance worse.

The issue was not simply whether feedback was positive or negative. Feedback was more useful when it directed attention toward the work, the strategy, and the next action. It was more likely to backfire when it shifted attention toward the person and whether they felt capable, respected, or “good enough.”

In other words, the useful leadership question is not, What is wrong with you? It is, What is getting in the way, and what do we need to do next? High accountability and personal respect are not opposites. Good leaders insist on both.

The Company-Level Evidence Points in the Same Direction

This is not just research about individual behavior. Nicholas Bloom, Erik Brynjolfsson, and their colleagues worked with the U.S. Census Bureau to study management practices across 35,000 manufacturing plants. They looked at basic disciplines such as collecting performance information, setting targets, and connecting advancement to results. Those practices accounted for more than 20 percent of the differences in productivity among the plants—an effect comparable to investments in technology, research and development, or employee capability.

Bloom and another team of researchers also conducted a randomized experiment with textile plants in India. Some plants received several months of management consulting, while others did not. Within a year, the plants that adopted stronger management practices improved productivity by 17 percent.

The practices were not revolutionary. The companies tracked quality, managed inventory, maintained equipment, clarified responsibilities, and reviewed performance more consistently. That is the point: we are often tempted to look for a breakthrough when the business really needs a rhythm.

There is also evidence for the value of peer accountability. In a randomized study involving thousands of business owners in China, Jing Cai and Adam Szeidl found that owners assigned to monthly peer meetings increased revenue and that the gains continued after the formal meetings ended.

I chair peer groups for a living, so I do not pretend to be neutral about this finding. But I believe the reason it works is fairly straightforward. When business owners make commitments in front of people they respect, return to discuss their progress, and learn from how others are solving similar problems, good intentions are more likely to become action. Accountability is not about embarrassment; it is about helping people follow through on what they said mattered.

How I Would Use the 80 Working Days

If you are serious about finishing the year strong, I would keep the process simple. The goal is not to introduce another management program. It is to establish a few practices that your team can understand, use, and repeat.

Week One: Reset the Goal Honestly

Choose the one or two numbers that will determine whether the year was successful. If the January target remains achievable, recommit to it. If it does not, replace it with a goal that is challenging but believable. Then compare that goal with what your business actually produced from September through December during the last two years.

We all suffer from what researchers call the planning fallacy—our tendency to underestimate how long work will take and overestimate how much we can accomplish. Looking at your own history helps correct for that optimism. Your history is usually a better forecaster than your hope.

Week One: Know Whether You Need a Performance Goal or a Learning Goal

If your team already knows how to produce the result, use a performance goal: a clear number by a clear date. If the team does not yet know the right method, use a learning goal first. Instead of saying, “Reduce delivery time by 20 percent,” say, “Identify and test three ways to reduce delivery time by October 15.” Research by Gerard Seijts and Gary Latham found that learning goals can outperform hard output goals when people are facing a complex task and do not yet know the best strategy.

Four months may be enough time to test a method or deliver a result. It may not be enough time to invent the method and deliver the result at the same time.

Week Two: Build the Accountability

Put the goal in writing, name one owner, and share it with the people whose work affects it. Ask the owner to create three if-then plans for the most likely obstacles, and then establish the weekly meeting where progress will be reported. Do not build a complicated new management system. One page and 30 disciplined minutes are enough to start.

Every Monday: Review the Same One-Page Scorecard

Look at the result, the gap, and the next action. If the number is off track, use the if-then plan. Keep feedback focused on the work, make decisions, remove obstacles, and end with a clear commitment for the coming week. Then do it again next Monday. Consistency will beat intensity almost every time.

Stop Starting Things

This may be the hardest part. The remaining months are enough time to finish one or two important priorities well, but they are not enough time to finish five. Every new initiative divides attention and gives people another reason to postpone the work that already matters.

Before starting anything else, ask, Is this more important than the one or two results we have already agreed will define success? If the answer is no, do not start it.

What Success Looks Like on December 31

Success may not mean reaching the number you wrote down in January. Your own history may show that the original goal was never realistic.

For me, success would mean three things:

• You reached the honest, challenging goal you reset in September.
• Your weekly accountability meeting ran for 15 straight weeks without being skipped.
• You entered January with a management rhythm that was already working.

The companies that consistently reach their goals are not the ones that never fall behind. They are the ones that recognize the gap early, reset honestly, decide what to do next, and maintain the discipline to follow through.

You have about 80 working days. That is enough time to make a meaningful difference, but it will not happen because everyone agrees to push harder. It will happen because you decide what matters, make the commitment visible, review it every week, and stop allowing less important work to get in the way.

The question is: What is the one result your business must deliver before December 31, and what will you do this Monday to make sure it does not get lost in the noise?

Research Notes and Sources

These notes support the central claims in the article without interrupting the main narrative.

1. Grit. Credé, Tynan, and Harms reviewed 88 independent samples representing 66,807 people. They found that grit was strongly related to conscientiousness and that the perseverance component was more useful than the consistency-of-interests component. The evidence supports caution about treating grit as an entirely new or uniquely powerful predictor—not the conclusion that persistence is unimportant. “Much Ado About Grit” (2017)
2. Growth mindset. Macnamara and Burgoyne’s systematic review and meta-analysis examined 63 studies involving 97,672 participants. The average effect of growth-mindset interventions on academic achievement was small, and the effect was not significant in higher-quality studies. The research concerns academic interventions, so the article does not extend the finding into an unsupported claim about adult managers. “Do Growth Mindset Interventions Impact Students’ Academic Achievement?” (2023)
3. Specific, challenging goals. Locke and Latham reviewed decades of goal-setting research and concluded that specific, difficult goals tend to outperform vague “do your best” instructions when people have the ability, resources, feedback, and commitment needed to pursue them. “Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation” (2002)
4. Visible and group goals. Epton, Currie, and Armitage synthesized 141 reports containing 384 tests. Goal setting produced a small but reliable improvement in behavior, with stronger effects in studies using public goals and group goals. “Unique Effects of Setting Goals on Behavior Change” (2017)
5. If-then plans. Gollwitzer and Sheeran’s meta-analysis covered 94 independent tests and found that implementation intentions—plans linking a situation with a specific response—had a medium-to-large positive effect on goal attainment. A later meta-analysis examined 642 tests and reinforced the usefulness of this planning approach across many settings. Gollwitzer & Sheeran (2006); Sheeran, Listrom & Gollwitzer (2025)
6. Monitoring progress. Harkin and colleagues reviewed 138 studies involving 19,951 participants. Prompting people to monitor progress improved goal attainment, with larger effects when progress was physically recorded or publicly reported. “Does Monitoring Goal Progress Promote Goal Attainment?” (2016)
7. Feedback. Kluger and DeNisi synthesized 607 effect sizes from 131 studies. Feedback improved performance on average, but more than one-third of the effects were negative. Their theory and findings warn that feedback can backfire when it shifts attention away from the task and toward the self. “The Effects of Feedback Interventions on Performance” (1996)
8. Management practices and productivity. Bloom and colleagues surveyed approximately 35,000 U.S. manufacturing plants in two waves. Structured management practices accounted for more than 20 percent of the variation in productivity, comparable to or greater than the share associated with research and development, information technology, or human capital. “What Drives Differences in Management Practices?” (2019)
9. Management experiment in India. Bloom and colleagues randomly offered management consulting to Indian textile plants. The intervention improved management practices and increased productivity by 17 percent in the first year. “Does Management Matter? Evidence from India” (2013)
10. Business-owner peer groups. Cai and Szeidl conducted a randomized field experiment with 2,820 Chinese business owners. Owners assigned to monthly peer meetings improved business performance, including an estimated 8.1 percent increase in revenue for treated firms one year after the meetings ended. “Interfirm Relationships and Business Performance” (2018)
11. The planning fallacy. Buehler, Griffin, and Ross showed across several studies that people tend to underestimate their own completion times because they focus on their plans and underuse relevant past experience. “Exploring the Planning Fallacy” (1994)
12. Learning goals for complex work. Gerard Seijts and Gary Latham reviewed evidence showing that, on complex tasks where people have not yet discovered an effective strategy, a learning goal can be more useful than a hard performance target. Their article explains when each kind of goal is appropriate and cites the underlying experimental work. “Learning Versus Performance Goals: When Should Each Be Used?” (2005)