You’re already looking for greater success in 2010. That means planning improvements: in performance, in production, in customer satisfaction…

A true business leader will practice these 7 resolutions not just in January, but throughout 2010…

Ask questions. List what you don’t know. List what it will help you to know. List what you want to know. List what you don’t know but should. Create questions from your lists. Ask those questions. Repeatedly.

Ask all kinds of people. Ask employees what they like about their work. Ask what they don’t like. Ask customers what’s good about your products or services. Ask what’s not so good. As vendors how you and they might work together better. Ask members of your community what they know, think, feel about your business.

Share with your leadership team. Share information from answers received without generating  defensive responses. You want what you share to stimulate improvement ideas…

Create meaningful plans. Use the information gathered to ignite ideas for improvements you desire in 2010. Start among your leadership team. Expand discussion to your managers. Engage employees and their suggestions. (The questions and answers were just the start!)

Publish plans. No matter what type of improvement plans — customer satisfaction, talent recruiting, service enhancement, and more — they cannot be kept under wraps. Publish the plans. Provide thorough overview and communicate specific processes and procedures. You want every individual to know her role in fulfilling the project. You want every employee to know how the plan’s success impacts him.

Publicize success. From the get go, enable everyone to know step-by-step progress toward plan fulfillment. Measure incremental achievement and announce it by e-mail, newsletter, charts, meetings and press releases.  Announce that success on a regular basis. Increase the hype the closer to ultimate success.

Reflect on success. Pay attention to which process steps worked and which didn’t. Utilize this insight to streamline your 2011 plans. Invite leadership team, management and employees participate in “what did we learn” discussions as follow-up to completing 2010 projects.

Here’s to 2010: a year for improvement!