What is Follow-Up?

Follow-up in this context means to continuously evaluate one’s progress toward achieving a goal.

What Does Follow-Up Look Like?

• Follow-up should be positive, simple, focused and fast.
• After asking for people’s feedback and ideas of how you can improve, you should have set a goal about an area in which you want to improve, and then defined some action steps to take.
• Next, about every month or so, ask each of your co-workers, “About a month ago I told you that I wanted to get better at [XYZ]. In the last month, have I gotten better, worse or stayed the same?”
• Also ask, “What 1 or 2 ideas can you give me for the month ahead that will help me to continue improving?”
• Write down what they say. Pray about and consider their feedback. And then take action on any ideas people gave you that you feel you should try.

That’s it! Keep following up every month.  It’s quick and easy!

The Impact of Follow-Up:

• Following-up on one’s personal development goals directly relates to the amount of one’s change and improvement.
• Marshall Goldsmith’s research with thousands of leaders worldwide showed that 89% of leaders who did “some follow-up” were rated as “more effective” by their co-workers.
• The bottom line is that leaders who ask for feedback, respond positively to it, and who follow-up in their efforts to improve, experience dramatic improvements in their effectiveness.