How do you measure success? Learn why this question matters and how to use it to great effect.
In less than 4 minutes, this video will teach you the 3 words that will allow you to manage both short and long term goals.
Examine your list of top priorities and subsequent action items. These are likely things you and your colleagues can do, check off, and be done. If the lists are short, focused, powerful, and aligned, that is excellent. But it is not enough. There is one more question that deserves consideration as the new year kicks off. What do you want to be? Do you want to be: More decisive A better listener Bolder Less defensive More of a team player A better leader More open-minded Fit and thin An expert The list of possibilities is endless and the choice applies to you personally as well as to your company. What kind of company, division, or department do you want to be? Focus is just as important when striving to be something as when striving to do something because you don’t become something without doing something. So what do you want to become during 2012? Resolve to make it so today!
The top 5 goals for small business owners for 2012 according to the March issue of Inc. Magazine are: Grow the business Improve relationships with friends and family Eat healthier Work out more Work less Do these look like your goals? If so, is this the way you think about them or have you taken the critical next steps?
No time and no money are the most frequent excuses for not doing what needs to be done. Do yourself a huge favor and drop them from your vocabulary. Time and money are just resources. No Time + No Money = Not a Priority We all have the same number of hours in a day and the reality is that far more of them are wasted than you realize, both yours and that of your employees. The waste stems from many sources: Unclear priorities and expectations Inefficient processes Mismatch of talent to responsibilities Inadequate investment in things like equipment, facilities, training, expert advice, and administrative support Lack of focus and discipline Mistakes and rework Confusion over roles and responsibilities Perfectionism and analysis paralysis Ineffective collaboration and communication. If you want something badly enough, you can make the time.
When there is too much to do, things fall through the cracks, delays become epidemic, and stress spirals out of control. If others are involved, discord brews and respect erodes. The result is rarely pretty. But it doesn’t have to be that way. When there is too much to do, there are only six possibilities. The good news is that five of them are effective. The bad news is that most people choose the sixth. Here are the five effective ways of dealing with overload: Accomplish more Delegate/outsource Cut corners Postpone Abandon What is #6? Choosing none of the above. The sixth choice is the only ineffective option. It’s called wishful thinking.
SMART goals – Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely – are all the rage, but are they smart? A smart goal is one that will be achieved. And if you want your goals to be achieved, these five SMART factors have several fatal flaws. First, the SMART factors don’t do much to ensure goals are important to the organization. “Relevant” is a weak statement of importance. Any goal worth defining and tracking should make a significant impact on the success of the organization. Second, the SMART factors say nothing about the individual who needs to achieve the goal. You can’t tell me a particular goal is equally smart for any number of different individuals. People are not interchangeable and therefore the goals assigned to them can’t be either.
There are a million ways to improve our businesses and our lives. The ideas float in the window, arrive via email, pop into conversation, pile up in droves when we read, appear as “suggestions” from the boss, and are promoted by colleagues, friends, customers, suppliers, and more. But we can’t do them all! If you run with every exciting new idea, you will drive yourself crazy and get nowhere of significance. The answer is not to block out new ideas and information. Listening, learning, imagining, evolving, and, occasionally leaping, are important.
Get your year off to a great start with these 10 tips for creating the clarity that can speed and improve results in 2011: If you want different results in the new year, you, and those with whom you work, must behave differently. Business as usual won’t magically produce increased revenue, greater profits, better products, fewer problems, less confusion, more productive employees, and happier customers. Get clear about what you and others will do differently to make this new year different. Make your top priorities clear. It is better to catapult 3 – 5 priorities into the next county than to slog up the mountain inch by inch with dozens. Decide what to stop doing. If you have too many priorities, you have no priorities. Make a clear decision to abandon, postpone, outsource, or cut corners. Don’t leave such decisions to chance.
Org charts and goals can be extremely hazardous to profit margins. You may wonder how this can possibly be, especially after all the recent focus on cost cuts. The reason? Not all revenue dollars are created equal and not all cost cuts increase profits. With everyone responsible for something other than profits, profits suffer: The sales force is responsible for booking orders; big orders and lots of orders are what counts. They may not have any idea which customers and products are most profitable. The production people are responsible for shipping quality products on time. The more products that go out the door on time, the bigger their bonuses and raises. It doesn’t matter how many of those products have low or no margin.