Reaching Your Goals Why do so many business owners and managers fail to meet the goals they have in mind? All too often, it starts with the fact the goals are “in mind”. If you are serious about setting and reaching goals in business the following steps have been shown to be effective:
1. Choose a goal which is realistic and measurable. While it is fine to set a “stretch” goal, one that is really impossible most often results in the goal just being abandoned. And if the goal is vague or general, not measurable, it is too easy to simply forget.
2. Write the goal down on paper. For some reason, the simple act of putting a goal on paper causes us to be more serious about it.
3. Identify and document specific action steps you will take to reach the goal including a schedule of when you will take each step.
4. Share the goal with someone who will hold you accountable – a goalkeeper. Most often this is a peer or a mentor, someone you trust and someone who will not be afraid to tell you the truth.
5. Establish a schedule of meetings with your goalkeeper specifically to review progress on your goal. Include a discussion of action steps you have taken to reach the goal.
6. As you review progress on your goal, revise the goal if business conditions have changed making the goal no longer relevant, but not just because you are having trouble reaching it.
With thoughts of a better, future state, setting goals is often enjoyable. Reaching those goals, however, takes the management disciplines of planning and control. Entrepreneurs may not have set out to be managers when they founded their businesses, but management is what will make the difference between success and failure.
Reaching Your Goals - To learn more about this author, visit Tom Long's Website.
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Tom Long
(Visit Tom's Website)
Tom Long is the President of Solid Oak
Consulting, LLC.
www.SolidOakConsulting.com
He is a seasoned executive with 30 years
of experience in starting, managing and
turning around business groups both
domestically and internationally.
He has started groups at Procter & Gamble,
Nastec Corporation, Ernst & Young and R.R.
Donnelley & Sons. And has worked to
turnaround groups at Cincom Systems,
Nastec Corporation, Oracle, KPMG, Andersen
Consulting and Computer Associates.
His involvement as an executive in a
Venture Capital backed startup, Nastec
Corporation, is where he first had the
opportunity to work in a turnaround
situation. But since then, he has
consistently sought out opportunities to
work in growing businesses, start-ups and
turnarounds.
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