The Core Concepts of the 12 Week Year System: A Deep Dive ​

During my more than 20 years spent in the coaching area working closely with executives, and high level achievers from a plethora of industries, I have witnessed a number of productivity systems and strategies emerging in the market. Nevertheless, without a doubt, I can say that the 12 Week Year system is one of the most cutting-edge productivity systems I have met.In this article, I will turn to the main concepts that lie at the foundation of my personal experience as well as the story of my multitude of clients, which makes this system so powerful.

 The Fundamental Shift: What Time Means to You? 

The part I think that is probably the most revolutionary about the 12 Week Year is not the tools or techniques you receive – it’s the fact that it has completely changed our approach towards time. There is no longer a concept of time measured in a yearly metric, now time exists in terms of metric of cycles which consists of 12 weeks. Each of these cycles is considered to be one “year” instead of a one year which makes the whole paradigm more appealing.

Here’s an example to better comprehend this. A software development team leader I coached, Sarah, was stuck on a platform upgrade project for several months. Her team adopted the ‘We have all year’ attitude thanks to the one-off annual planning approach. With this mindset, taking action midnight was easier said than done. When we adapted the 12 Week Year strategy, all of that transformed. I approached a different strategy as the same project was cut up into four separate 12-week parts, each with its own set of goals and completion dates. The end result? The outcomes surpassed the expectations and the upgrade was finished two months earlier than the projected timeframe.

The Real Barrier to Success: The Execution Gap. 

As someone who has gone through this experience, I can say that the problem most people present tends to not be due to ignorance, lack of resources or creativity, but rather due to poor execution. Fairly often, I have observed this pattern of discrepancies playing out: there are shoddy business strategies that are seamlessly executed which gets us the success we hope for.

Let’s consider Tom, a sales director I worked for. He was an industry expert and had good ideas on how to develop his territory, however, he did not know how to use them properly. However, in using the 12 Week Year system, we were able to see that his difficulty was not with strategy – it was with execution. As such, a routine of weekly planning and daily accountability was established, which improved his performance. Sales in his team increased by 87 percent in the two 12-week periods.

The Importance Of Meaningful Metrics In 12 Week Year

One of those core principles in the system is, “That one is score-keeping measure”, It is not about creating the burden – it is about offering the clarity and encouragement. A distinction is also made in 12 Week Year between two categories of metrics:

Lead Indicators: These are the actions that produce an outcome. For example, for a manager taking care of business development, they may be some of the few lead indicators used: –

– Number of prospect meetings scheduled

– Proposals submitted

– Follow-up calls completed

Lag Indicators: These are the results that you are aiming to achieve, for example: –

– Revenue generated

– Contracts signed

– Client retention rates

I worked together with Maria who is a fitness studio owner and was able to turn her business upside down through this metrics approach. For her, the objective of simply monitoring the monthly earnings (lag indicator) was expanded to daily number of client contacts, client class satisfaction levels and the number of referral talks (lead indicators). This focus resulted in an increase in the level of membership renewals by 143% in two chains of 12 Week cycles.

Maria was also able to achieve her targets using our system 12 week breakthrough.

The Control of Time Within the Management of the 12 Week Year

The central idea in the 12 Week Year is the control over the use of time. I often tell my clients: “You need to control time, or someone will control it for you.” This is not just a nice phrase – it is a principle that is important for success.
I shall quote an instance from my own practice. When i was starting out in business as a coach, I was forever in the position of dealing with the demands of the clients, emails coming in and the other urgent matters. During this time my output was rather low till such time as I introduced what I now refer to as ‘strategic time blocking’. This is how it goes:

– Peak Performance Blocks: 90 minute or two hours uninterrupted time periods for concentrated activities

– Buffer Blocks: Time lined for dealing with routine matters and communication

– Break Blocks: Time periods scheduled for recuperation and energy boosting

The moment I went over this with Jennifer who is a chief marketing officer and overworked, it gave her some profound benefits. By restricting her hours for strategic activity to the morning between 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM and grouping most tasks of low significance into blocks of time, alone led to a reduction in her working hours by 15% and her team productivity increasing by 40%.

The Vision-Action Connection As expressed in the preceeding paragraph, a central absence of the 12 Week Year is the establishing of deep intrinsic meaning for your objectives. This is not at all mere a peek into the surface of your strategies – its about determining how daily tasks contribute towards a long term vision that would enable putting up relentless efforts. David, a technology entrepreneur, was one of those fellows I dealt with who experienced difficulty in keeping up with the growth of his start up. The problem was that, even though the business plan was good, he constantly found himself busy with routine activities. Together, we found a way to tie David’s everyday tasks to his wider purpose: developing software that would give small companies more chance to succeed in the online market. This action-vision piece completely is a game changer for him. He would enact vision review for 15 minutes in the beginning of each day, together with the tasks he was to accomplish but with the end goal in mind. After two 12-week cycles with the new strategy, he was able to have a mvp ready and acquire funding for it within the time span of 18 months. The last claim had previously been made without success over 18 months. The Power of Community and Accountability There are, however, fine integrations that should be made to the community, in addition to the 12 Week Year which provides powerful tools and frameworks. In my experience, people who are part of a believing community succeed 3.7 times more than those who are trying by themselves.

That’s why I always urge customers to develop what I refer to as “12 Week Year Partnerships” – these are small scale groups of two to three persons who meet once a week to: 

– Evaluate and report performance on lead metrics

– Discuss problems and solutions with each other

– Appreciate achievements and help during losses

– Ensure commitments are followed through by everyone

One of my most self-sufficient implementations was done with a group of real estate agents who developed a partnership. They gathered every Monday morning to recap their last week: what they did in the previous week, what they learnt about the market, and what activities they planned for the week ahead. They all tripled their transaction volume in less than half a year, attributing their accomplishment to the mutual support and demands for accountability imposed on each other.

Planning Critical To Achievement

The 12 Week Year makes it clear that effective planning is not optional – it is a precondition for achiving something spectacular. Planning doesn’t mean preparing voluminous and wordy plans that are put on the shelf to gather dust. Rather, it is a fluid, practical and result-centered approach that translates strategic intent into everyday vigorous action.

My clients learn how to set priorities using three levels of planning.

Strategic (12-week) Planning:

– Scoping objectives that are clear and measurable

– Determining essential strategies and tactics

– Setting lead and lag indicators.

Weekly Break Down / Planning:

– Setting weekly objectives to achieve the 12-week targets / goals

– Placing great events in their time buckets

– Outlining what could go wrong.

Daily Planning:

– A quick review of what worked and what didn’t first thing in the morning

– Creation of time chunks

– Evaluation of what we achieved at the end of the day

One of my clients, an ED of one of the nonprofits which I work with, radically changed the approach towards the fundraising of her organization, using this planning hierarchy. Instead of going through the bedtime story of doing a campaign once a year, like all normal and tired organizations, she created 12-week campaigns, branding each of them and allocating goals for the whole year. The result was a 225 percent increase in the money collected and increased activity of the donors.

Conclusion: The 12 Week Year Is Ego Power.

After years of using this system with hundreds of clients, I have noted that great results are achieved when the core components are activated in synergy. You can be making 12 week plans or measuring metrics, that may be effective, but the greatest benefit lies in more than one common application of all these principles.