The Bucket List

My review is almost here - about 6 weeks to go and I'm honestly looking forward to it. Each year, my review is a great chance to have a prolonged conversation with my boss not only about the areas I can improve upon, but from a strategic perspective, where do we want to go over the next 12 months.

This year, in anticipation, I'm working on a list of what I've accomplished in my job to date and what do I see as left on the "bucket list" which in this case means before I leave my position (caution: do not equate that necessarily with leaving my company).

As I've done the list, I've had to take it from the perspective of deciding what i think would have been on the list back on day 1 because well, I hadn't created the list before today.

The exercise has really made me think about how valuable it would be if each of us (at all aspects of any organization) truly created a "bucket list" before coming into our jobs.

I'm not talking about the run of the mill things we'd probably put on our list (make membership #'s, sell out an event, etc)...I'm talking about some real introspection that makes us ponder the true contribution we want to make on the organization and what we want our legacies to be.

You might be thinking that this is a great exercise for a senior manager, but how can others do this / what's the value? I'm a firm believer that there is great benefit in exposing junior staff to the same concepts and questions (albeit in a safe/structured setting) that senior staff tackles today - how else do you prepare them for the bigger leadership stage?

Everyone makes an impact...perhaps if we take time to think about it earlier in our runs with a company, and work to "peel the onion back" past the top layer and really ponder the question of impact, we can accomplish more on our run in job, whether it lasts 1 year or 10.