Goal-Setting – Still the Overlooked Secret to Success

Often it’s the basics that determine the difference between thriving in your life and business or merely surviving in business. Goal-setting is one of those bottom-line, essential basics.

Mark McCormick in his book What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School tells of a Harvard study conducted between 1979 and 1989.  Researchers found that the 3 percent of 1979 MBA graduates who had created clear, written goals were earning, in 1989, on average, 10 times more than 97 percent of their graduating class. They also found that the 13 percent of the Class of ’79 MBA graduates who had set goals, even though they were not in writing, were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent of students who had expressed no goals at all.

Goals and the clarity of goals made a lifetime of difference for these Harvard MBA graduates.

Goal-Setting Process

In my consulting practice and workshops, I often include a 9-step goal-setting process. I’ve found that one of the most overlooked steps in the process – the one so many of us dearly want to skip over – is one of the most intuitive.

That skipped step: identifying obstacles and challenges that are likely to appear along the way and thinking through solutions.

These obstacles are usually quite easy to identify. Begin with the top two: you and everyone else.

Consider the obstacles you put in your own path: procrastination? Chaotic time management?  Inability to delegate? Then consider the obstacles others contribute: Interruptions? Lack of support? Lack of training?

Once you’ve identified your obstacles, then set about finding workable solutions. I encourage you to hold to your goals. Resist the urge to reduce your goals; instead, improve your solutions. And remember, well-planned and supported goals – the ones most likely to succeed – include lifestyle and family goals as well as business ones.

Take the time to set goals for your company and your life. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll succeed.

Realizing the Personal Aspect of All Productivity

Recently in one of my business coaching workshops, a client hit the nail right on the head when it comes to company productivity.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” he said, “What you’re saying is that company productivity is really all about personal productivity. It’s all about us.”

You can imagine my response: “Excellent,” I said. “Gold Stars.”  All productivity, whether your company is a small firm or a global corporation, derives from the personal. And what does that mean to you, the leader or owner of a company?

It means that your company’s productivity begins (or ends) with your personal leadership and productivity. You get your team to be more productive by setting an example of personal productivity.

Leadership Matters in Productivity

Productivity starts at the top, in your office. Think of who has the most invested in your company or department. I’d wager that that person is you. If you own the business, it’s your money on the line. If you’re the managing executive of a department, it’s your career and reputation on the line. Your investment in productivity is huge.

Now, consider the essential nature of productivity. If I’m on your sales force, I can bring in all the work in the world, but if it can’t be done within budget and without cost overruns or rework or, at worst,  orders cannot even be filled, then we do not get the net result we’re looking for.

In fact, we do our business more harm than good when we over-sell and under-deliver; i.e., when productivity cannot meet needs. This is no small order, either, and is especially challenging now that many workforces have been reduced and everyone has to be more productive without having a nervous breakdown.

Productivity can mean the difference between survival or not and/or profitability or not.  Right down to whether the business owner can pull a paycheck or not.

So, when my client said, “It’s all about us,” you can see, he was right. Productivity begins with you, the leader, personally, and it is also fundamental to your net profit.

– Success begins with a blueprint.
Valerie

Getting Excited About Productivity

— the best-kept secret to business success in any economy

Many businesspeople I consult with hear the word productivity and immediately fall into a deep sleep. There’s just nothing exciting about the word.

But I have to tell you that the difference productivity can make in your life and business is very, very exciting. Improve your productivity and you improve your chances of spending quality time away from business, leaving you more time with the ones you love.

How to Improve Productivity

Productivity is fundamental to meeting any business goal. And in challenging economic times, being strong on the fundamentals can be a make or break for a business. But how do you improve and increase your productivity?

This is one of the essential business concepts I tackle during some of my first meetings with clients. We go through many steps and use several different tools to reveal the truth underlying the hours spent at the office. When we do, we almost always discover that too many of the hours we spend at work are virtually “lost hours”, which in turn contribute to long days – and weekends – at work instead of play.

I want to share with you one of the first steps toward discovering these lost hours and the holes in your own productivity:

Know – and understand – what your time is worth. Your productivity will always be tied to how you spend your time, so seriously evaluate how you spend each minute and hour at work.

• What are your high-payoff activities, and how much time do you spend on them?
• How much time are you spending on low-payoff activities?
• How much time is lost to no-payoff activities?

Once you’ve taken this step, you should see some opportunities for increasing your productivity. And when you increase your productivity and begin to see the ripples of effects this can have on your work and home life, I guarantee that the word productivity is going to begin to sound a lot more exciting.

Improve Productivity with Communication

Written By Paul J. Meyer. (Reprinted with permission)

Business leaders often state that one of the greatest needs in the workplace is people who can communicate.

Once goal setting and planning are accomplished, goals and plans must be communicated to others whose cooperation is needed. Effective communication unifies employees and their work to the overall purpose and direction of
the organization. Through communication, you raise your organization’s levels of energy, enthusiasm, and productivity!

Mastering the art of communication is a complex process demanding time and ongoing effort. But choosing to continually improve your communication skills increases your productivity dramatically and the productivity of those around you.

Read more

“Business Communication” Improves Productivity

Here is an excerpt from the latest business article we have added to our library.

Improve Productivity with Communication

Business leaders often state that one of the greatest needs in the workplace is people who can communicate.

Once goal setting and planning are accomplished, goals and plans must be communicated to others whose cooperation is needed. Effective communication unifies employees and their work to the overall purpose and direction of
the organization. Through communication, you raise your organization’s levels of energy, enthusiasm, and productivity!

Mastering the art of communication is a complex process demanding time and ongoing effort. But choosing to continually improve your communication skills increases your productivity dramatically and the productivity of those around you.

Read full article >