Six Essential Steps to Achieving Success
By Pam Usher – www.actioncoach.com/pamusher
During this holiday period if you were going to drive from Parramatta to Mooloolaba, would it help if you had a plan for when you were leaving, what you had to take, and what you had to do before you left? As you set out on this journey, would it also be helpful if you had a map and the address of where you were going to stay? Most people would answer yes to these questions.
But would it surprise you to hear that the majority of small to medium sized businesses do not have a Business or Strategic Plan, or an Annual Plan or Budget or even a Cash Flow Forecast? So how do they know where they are going? Having a plan with goals and executing that plan and measuring the results is the single biggest difference in highly successful businesses.
But why don’t businesses set goals? Some suggestions are:
- They don’t realise their importance
- They don’t know how to set them
- They fear failure – failure hurts – yet sabotage themselves by not setting them
- They fear rejection and believe if they are not successful others will criticise or ridicule them
Studies of Harvard MBA graduates between 1979 and 1989 showed only 3% had goals written down, 13% had goals but were not written down, and 84% had no goals. 10 years later the same people were surveyed – 13% who had goals but not written down were earning on average twice as much as the 84% with no goals, and the 3% with written down goals on average were earning 10 times as much as the other 97% of grads all together
[br] So it is important to have a written down plan which establishes the road map for you and your team to travel forward in the same direction. It also provides you with a base upon which you can assess your company performance, over and above the Profit and Loss Statements that your bookkeeper/accountant may prepare for you, which after all is an historical (but important) report. The Plan with measurable goals will provides direction and key milestones that should be achieved along the way.
[br] There are six steps to setting and measuring goals for business success:
First, review your old goals and see if they are still valid beforesetting new goals. I make it a habit of writing down the wins and lessons from the previous year first. Reflecting on our past and taking the lessons out of our experience is a powerful way to make sure we don’t repeatedly make the same mistakes. Cross off the ones that don’t apply anymore and add any new ones.
For the goals you didn’t achieve, ask these questions:
Was it something I truly wanted? Was it inspiring to me and my team? Was it congruent with my other goals and my personal values? Were the consequences of NOT achieving that goal great enough? Did I know what steps to take and did I have the skills to execute them? In hindsight, is this goal something I still want to pursue?
Remember to also pat yourself on the back for the wins you’ve had. It is always too easy to say, “I stuffed it up” but, as long as you get the lesson, you can move forward.
Further, learn from your failures. Thomas Edison, who conducted more than a thousand experiments on filaments before he produced a practical light bulb, was once asked, “How did you keep going after you had failed more than a thousand times?” Edison replied, “I did not fail a thousand times; I learned a thousand ways that didn’t work.”
Second, set the right goals, based on a strategic plan that sets the most important priorities for the business to succeed and be dominant in its marketplace. Goals follow from a solid strategy for success. They need to be written down. These will include some old goals, but with an updated perspective and some totally new goals. Then make sure these new goals fit the S.M.A.R.T. criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Result Oriented, Time-framed). Writing the right goals down also give you a sense of meaning and purpose – a sense of direction.
[br] Third, launch a plan to achieve the goals. It is not enough to set goals in a vacuum and expect them to somehow be reached. The business needs to develop a clear plan of action, resource needs, roles and responsibilities, organisational structure, and commitment in order to put substance on how goals will be met. The goals need to be broken down into manageable chunks of time and tasks, with specific people responsible. For instance, if a business wants to generate 200 more leads per month, then it needs a plan of action to generate those leads, and that plan of action should break down further into specific action steps by specific people every single day.
[br] Fourth, create a dashboard of metrics (numbers) to track goals over time and make mid-course corrections. Every business owner or executive should have a dashboard to track where progress is acceptable and where intervention is required. You may want to seek further advice on how to develop the dashboard.
[br] Fifth, hold specific people accountable for achievement of the goals. Develop a recruitment and retention system to have the right people in the right places in the organisation – people that the leadership team/business owner trusts to get the job done. The business should constantly recruit for talent, and have a process to develop, reward, and retain top performers in the context of business goals.
[br] Sixth, have a process to track progress and make any necessary corrections. The key staff or leadership team should agree to meet regularly with the business owner to track and discuss progress – and bring in other personnel as needed. . Make sure that your goals are placed somewhere conspicuous (like on the whiteboard in the office, or on a card in your wallet) so you can see them daily. This is an important step in keeping focused.
Review them weekly and adjust your task list to make sure you are moving in the right direction. And celebrate any wins along the way to encourage good results.
Review them weekly and adjust your task list to make sure you are moving in the right direction. And celebrate any wins along the way to encourage good results.
This may sound like a long winded way of doing things, but I have found the opposite is true.
You see, our brains are a goal oriented mechanism like no other on earth. If you know how to program it, it can literally create miracles.
An Extra Couple of Notes:
1. Planning will also make a difference in your time management. I teach my clients to first start with a realistic daily calendar that has “default” areas to work on various important but not urgent tasks. What are the three core tasks that you could complete today that would drive your business forward? What is the highest and best use of your personal time? Are you still doing jobs that others should be doing? What is it that only you can accomplish? Do you still believe that there are many things that only you can do? What is it that you do really well and that would make a difference in your business right now? If you are the craftsman or relationship salesperson of your business get out there and do it!
2. What difference would it make in your business if every 90 days, you could sit down and develop the goals, strategies, tasks and time lines needed to help you realise those larger goals in measured steps? No one wants to face a 900 kgm. Gorilla disguised as a business plan. Wouldn’t it be more enjoyable and less stressful to train 50 much smaller Chimps? Breaking your plan into manageable parts allows you to see your results sooner, make adjustments as needed and continue toward success. Isn’t measuring results along the way, much more desirable than coming to the end of the year and asking “what happened”?
And in the words of Brian Tracy, a well-known business writer:
- All successful people are intensely goal oriented.
- One of the rules of success is this: It doesn’t matter where you are coming from; all that matters is where you are going to
- You become what you think about most of the time
- Successful people think about what they want and how to get it
- Unsuccessful people think and talk about their problems and worries
- The size, scope, and detail of the goals you choose to think about most of the time are completely up to you
If you want support and guidance…
If you want assistance with the Six Essential Steps to Having Your Business Achieve Its Goals contact Pam Usher, a business improvement specialist …..because success in business requires goals, leadership and accountability.
Pam Usher
Certified Business and Executive Coach
Executive Performance Today!…Business Success Tomorrow!
PO Box 5161 Main: 0417 365 368
Kenmore East Fax: 07 3319 0959
Qld 4069 Mobile: 0417 645 368
Email: businesssuccesstoday@powerup.com.au
Website: www.actioncoach.com/pamusher
Kenmore East Fax: 07 3319 0959
Qld 4069 Mobile: 0417 645 368
Email: businesssuccesstoday@powerup.com.au
Website: www.actioncoach.com/pamusher
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