You manage your staff. You manage your programs. You manage your volunteers. The most important thing to manage, however, is your own life and career. Are things at work good enough but not great? Are you managing your job, or is your job managing you? Have you lost your passion for what you do? At whatever level we manage others, many of us neglect managing our ultimate report: ourselves. If you found yourself nodding your head as you read the questions above, you may have allowed your career

What is it like to work in a flourishing organization where people feel appreciated and inspired to deliver America’s dream on a daily basis? Just ask the folks at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Goddard) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who are members of the Creative Learning Groups (CLG) where they have incorporated the principles of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as a way of being at work every day.

We encourage our clients to schedule time every so often to climb out of their day-to-day activity and survey their operation from a broader perspective. Extracting themselves from daily demands, leaders invariably begin to reflect on ways to improve efficiencies and, ultimately, results. One factor often considered is an alternate organizational structure. This consideration is driven by the obvious importance of aligning resources within a law firm to support the strategic plan and facilitate the attainment of goals. The costs, however, can be high if such a change is implemented without a well-thought-out plan; morale can become a casualty, leaders who don’t have ownership for the change can actively undermine the initiative, latent value can remain untapped while diverting resources unnecessarily. When handled effectively and for the right reasons, restructuring can strengthen the alignment of human capital with the firm’s strategic plan. The result will be increased organizational effectiveness and efficiency. What is required is the examination of the complex relationships between tasks, workflow, responsibility and authority. The recommended design must align the right business controls, flexibility, incentives, people and resources.

To partner, or not to partner? This can be a provocative and wrenching question for coaches, inviting us to explore compatibility, competency and viability. As there are limits to growing a business as a solopreneur, partnership as a growth strategy is worth exploring. Leveraging collaborative partnerships can accelerate the desired results: financial strength, satisfaction, inspiration, impact. Of course the stories of partnerships gone wrong are all too common, with disagreements over money, the distribution of work, partners’ relationships with debt or the best path forward, to name a few conflicts. Ineffective partnerships can be a huge distraction to your work, wasting time, money and resources, and perhaps tarnishing the reputations of the partners and the business.

Every business owner eventually exits his or her business. Some owners leave by choice (retirement, career change) while others depart due to changes in the market, circumstances beyond their control or because someone outside the business changed something that prevented it from continuing. As the owner, you are the champion for your business and, specifically, for the future beyond your personal involvement. Your reaction may be, “That’s way down the road. I need to focus on getting and serving clients now.” While both are definitely pressing issues, it is never too early to start thinking about your exit strategy. You can choose to let your exit evolve organically or you can choose to take control to influence the outcome. The following questions will help you decide if you want to adopt an exit strategy: