As the first half of the year closes out, you may find that the goal you had for the year is a stretch — never a good feeling. On the other hand, you might feel like your goal for 2024 wasn’t ambitious enough. Either way, now that the dust has settled from the year’s first half, it’s time to climb up the tree to see if you’re still on the right path. It’s time for a midyear gut check. 

Types of Midyear Goal Review Meetings and How to Approach Them

It’s vital to do a mid-year review with your teams, direct reports, and managers. Reviewing the last 6 months worth of work and assessing what stays and what goes will yield one of the highest ROI's of any meeting on your Q3 calendar. It does not have to be a very long meeting, but it does have to be very intentional. 

Each meeting has the same goal: making sure you’re on track (or getting on track) for the second half of the year. However, the meetings will vary depending on who you’re checking in with.

Midyear Goal Review Meetings For Leadership Teams

Your leadership’s midyear goal review meeting shouldn’t be too different from your typical quarterly check-ins, but the midyear is a great time to really focus in because you have the advantage of a clean halfway mark for your yearly goals. 

Are you 50% to your goals, more or less? Will you be able to make up the slack for the remainder of the year if you need to, or should you shift your goalposts to be even more ambitious? 

It’s important to set aside time for this meeting – you want at least two hours, but probably more. This is a chance to step out of the day-to-day and into the bigger picture. Not only that, these meetings should never feel rushed or like a chore; they are a chance to keep your leadership team connected with each other and the organization’s direction. 

In our Leadership Meeting Blog, you can find a sample agenda for a quarterly strategic meeting that can help you structure your midyear meeting.

Midyear Goal Review Meetings For Managers and Direct Reports

Whether you’re meeting with your manager or direct report in a on-on-one, midyear is a good time to check with your counterpart on how they're feeling about their progress. You may have done this more casually throughout the year already but it's important to give the discussion some structure, to record the meeting, and to assign and track any actions or to-dos that come out of it.

To kick it off, review what was planned at the beginning of the year: What were the numbers or outcomes that were agreed upon to signal success on your yearly goals? You should both ask yourselves, “Are these still appropriate goals considering how the year has gone?” Adjusting goal-targets is a huge key to keeping employee morale and motivation high.

You should also ask yourself “Do we need to scrap any of these goals right here and now?” Priorities change quickly and what was important or feasible in January may not be any longer. If a goal needs to be scrapped, mutually agree on new second half goals that take the reality of 2024’s second half expectations into consideration. 

Once you've agreed upon second half numbers and/outcomes, put them in writing and break them down so they're more manageable. Plan out the next major steps (2-3) that will put you on the right track to hit that number or goal for the end of the year. The, most importantly, set a regular recurring time to check in with the goal owner and get updates on their progress towards the goal or KPI.

Lastly, praise. Everyone has faced their own personal challenges and hardships that they overcome to try to bring their best self to work. Remember to use the meeting to also acknowledge and emphasize what’s been accomplished, both personally and professionally. Your team will thank you for it. 

Have Meetings that Matter with Strety

Finally, don’t lose momentum after having these awesome, revitalizing meetings! Schedule regular leadership meetings and on-on-one meetings that keep your team connected on track. Not only that, keep your work organized and centralized so there’s easy visibility into goals and progress, without the need for excessive meetings.

When the people in your organization speak the same language and are working in a culture of consistency and transparency, it’s that much easier for them to excel — which is excellent news for your bottom line.

We built Strety as a platform with all of the tools businesses need to run an effective business operating system (B.O.S.). Our built-in custom agendas and agenda templates will not only help you have meetings that matter, but also capture the action items that come out of your meetings, your goals and how you’re tracking against them. Strety is the best way to get on track and stay there.

Give Strety a try for free, or book some time for a tour around our tools.