How individuals and businesses can rethink their resolutions this year

Making resolutions is common this time of year.

Losing weight. Leading a healthier lifestyle. Breaking a bad habit or two. These are all pledges millions of Americans make at the start of a new year.

This time also provides an opportunity for businesses to leverage the new year to create their own goals or enhance their offerings to support consumer resolutions. 

But how can individuals and companies ensure they are framing their resolution-driven goals in an ethical and positive way?

Daniel Gruber, associate dean for teaching and learning, and Jared Byrne, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and New Business Design, both in ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business, look at how groups can use the framework of Principled Innovation — the ability to imagine new concepts and new solutions guided by principles that create positive change for humanity — to enhance their goals. 

They share some thoughts on how the concept can be applied to the new year.

Note: Answers have been edited for length and/or clarity.

Question: What is a way you can apply the work that you do around Principled Innovation, or PI, to envisioning new ideas or approaches to New Year’s resolutions for individuals, startups and companies?

Daniel Gruber: You can start by thinking about what guides you as an individual or organization. At ASU, practicing Principled Innovation starts with the question, “Just because we can, should we?” That intentionality ensures that we put character and values at the center of our actions. 

For individuals, the application of our work would be to think deeply about how the New Year’s resolution aligns with your character and values. This may lead to a refinement of your resolution. 

Losing weight or getting into shape may become improving my health in a sustainable way to ensure I am at my best for myself and my family. It allows an individual to check in on the idea of improving versus losing or getting and sets a trajectory that embraces a medium- to long-term time horizon instead of a short fix. 

As Jared and I often say to colleagues when we are doing this work, it is like an “and” where you do want to lose weight or get in shape and do it in a way that honors your values of being healthy to be your best self and for your family.

For startups and companies, the application of our work would be to have New Year’s promotions or deals that align with its character and values. Asking the question, just because we can, should we? This propels companies from a mindset of we must do something to promote the business and product at the start of the year, to taking a step back, applying the various Principled Innovation assets to understand its customers, their needs and how a promotion could serve them effectively while aligning with the company’s values. 

The idea of acquiring a bunch of new customers and then having them leave in a month or two is very different from setting the foundations for a long-term customer relationship. Perhaps the “and” here using PI as a design aspiration is to have a promotion where there is a special rate for the new year and then a monthly discount or bonus applied for medium-term milestones.  

Q: Jared, is there anything you want to add to this question?

Jared Byrne: One could argue that the point of a New Year’s resolution, or any goal, isn’t to have something to focus on for a whole year, but it is an opportunity to focus on something that you want to change and improve in our lives or businesses. So, with that in mind, the length of the resolution shouldn’t matter, or even when it starts isn’t as important as the context we’re in when we make the resolution. This understanding of context is an area where Principled Innovation can be particularly helpful.

What if we were to make a goal and then take a few minutes to use the framework of Principled Innovation to think through its potential impact? We could use the assets of PI, like the "performance pathway," to see how our often very personal goal could be implemented creatively, predict and plan out moments where we may need resilience as we move forward, or even find opportunities to collaborate with others. These types of thought processes could help us in making the goal more meaningful to our daily lives, build a community of support and, as Dan says, "embrace a medium- to long-term time horizon" and ideally lead to more positive outcomes.

Q: Let’s say someone is committed to this idea. What’s a good starting point for them?

Gruber: The Principled Innovation card deck is organized by the different assets of PI: moral, civic, intellectual and performance, and contain questions that can help individuals, teams and organizations with both starter and deeper-dive explorations of character that allow us to practice PI. There is an online version of the card deck that can be accessed here. When you go to the generative and reflective deck, you have an opportunity to view the cards in a way that aligns with your intentions.

For example, you may be looking for some inspiration for yourself individually; you could be working to solve a challenge on your team or envisioning a new company. These cards bring the questions that will help you find the answers and possibilities by practicing Principled Innovation. They allow you to explore ideas in a way that elevates and inspires. 

Q: If individuals or companies are starting to shift from short-term toward more medium- and long-term resolutions, could this end up becoming a more daunting task for someone looking to make a change?

Byrne: I’ve made resolutions that feel daunting just 10 minutes later, especially when they involve difficult changes or improvements. Any process of making a change in our lives, especially when we are trying to change long-term habits or business processes that have become ingrained in our startups, can be daunting. However, I would suggest a framework that challenges us to include character as we look beyond our current experience, utilizing a more broad, inclusive context, could be empowering.

For me, finding a way to collaborate around overlapping goals builds a community of support for the inevitable tough moments ahead. If we utilize our creativity in implementing our goals, we’re more likely to find joy and engagement in the process, not just the outcome. If we add in moments of reflection, curiosity or humility, we are more likely to keep learning, keep improving and stay the course despite hiccups that may come along the way.

So sure, resolutions can be daunting, but Dan and I are suggesting that there is an opportunity here to ensure that "daunting" is less "hurdle" and more "hope" — that the unique challenges we’re facing aren’t so much obstacles as they are opportunities.

Q: Is taking stock of where someone has been part of this equation for moving forward?

Gruber: Absolutely. It is essential to take stock and to take a pause. One of the PI practices that Jared and I have utilized in workshops we’ve facilitated is called the “90-second pause.” Usually, it is at the start of a session and encourages attendees to take a moment to breathe, reflect and appreciate the journey that has been leading up to the workshop. Although 90 seconds in the abstract sounds like a short amount of time, we marveled at how long in a room it can feel to just sit and reflect. Once you take that pause, you are open to jumping in.

Q: To repeat a phrase you live by — just because you can, should you?

Byrne: It depends! Setting, working toward and achieving resolutions is a very contextual experience. I would assume that most people recognize that there are some goals and resolutions that they should start and finish, and there are others that we should never even start. Even more confusing, there are likely goals that start well and then need to change, or others that we may need to postpone. 

The opportunity here is that when we use a framework like Principled Innovation to bring character and community into our resolution-making process, it helps us to more effectively pivot and proceed in a way that strengthens our goals, builds our communities and cumulatively starts to create that "positive change for humanity." Whether that change comes because we chose to do something, or because we chose not to do something, is only a subtext to the positive change that comes as we innovate with principles.