The management new year's resolution you cannot break

By the end of January, all those new year's resolutions that were so important a few short weeks ago look less attractive.

The big retailers will have taken a hit on turnover from a sudden decline in their sale of chocolates and burgundy in January, although this reduction in retail sales volumes will have been set off by an increase in gym membership fees. But the retailers all know that, by February, our good intentions will be crumbling and our consumption of truffles and wine will be on the way back to normal levels.

As managers, you are human too. It can be tempting to quietly forget about some of those good intentions on your list of resolutions, the ones that are going to make your business more efficient and profitable this year. But, while you may allow your resolutions that will help you to live a more healthy lifestyle to evaporate, you cannot afford to break any resolutions that will keep your business healthy.

So often the reason why our resolutions are broken is because, having started with good intentions, our willpower is worn down simply because what we are doing is just boring. Can we bear to get up that extra half an hour early and drink carrot juice? Is reading a chapter of that worthy (but long) novel each evening so important?

Two of the most important aspects of management are repetition and consistency. These are not glamorous virtues. But, if there is one resolution that you must keep, it is that you maintain the rhythm of management throughout the year. So much of management is about making sure the business performs the day-to-day tasks.

Obvious examples of these key (but repetitive) issues are around the functions of time recording, billing and cash collection. It is a cliché that working capital management is the lifeblood of any professional practice, but that makes it no less true or important.

It is, notoriously, something which many law firms are not good at managing. If you are running a small firm, you may be involved in hands-on activity to make sure that these basics run efficiently. In a bigger firm, you are more likely to be responsible for devising ways to ensure that these tasks are performed and for supervising the team that is responsible for their day-to-day delivery.

While a computer can be programmed to provide information and send out reminders that should relieve you and your team of the need to chase, in my experience, human intervention is a key part of ensuring the day-to-day business processes actually get delivered. Unfortunately, those processes are repetitive but, without them, the financial health of the business can suffer. So, you cannot afford to take your eye off them.

Your management teams will generally have a series of management meetings in the diary that follow a regular pattern. But, busy people can find reasons not to come to meetings. Do not be tempted to cancel or postpone a management meeting. If meetings are held on a consistent regular cycle, then people will get used to organising their diaries around them. But, crucially, if a management meeting is set aside in favour of another activity, that degrades the value of the management of the business and can delay decision making.

Developing new ideas and introducing changes can be the most exciting aspects of your role. But, however tempting it is to spend more time on these most challenging tasks, you have to make sure that the day to-days needs of the business are being met at the same time. These remain the foundation of every business. If you try to build grand new structures (such as growth strategies or new reward schemes) but do not maintain the integrity of the foundations, then the ambitions of your firm may founder.

Being consistent and keeping the wheels of management turning is vital. This does not mean that it should be boring, even though it may be repetitive. Part of that process is for you to review, renew and reinvent.

When you look at all your new year's resolutions and wonder whether you can give up on them this early in the year, do allow yourself some indulgences but do not, as a manager, give up your resolution not to neglect the day-to-day management of your business.

What do you think? Are key elements of management consistency and repetition?