The Six Essential Steps to Having Your Business Achieve Its Goals
The Six Essential Steps to Having Your Business Achieve Its Goals
By Andrew Neitlich
It has become stale at this point to discuss goals and achieving goals. Everyone knows what it takes to set and achieve goals, and there is no shortage of acronyms (e.g. GOALPOST) to help managers remember that goals are time bound, measurable, significant, etc.
This begs the question of why – if everyone knows how to set and keep goals – so many businesses fail to achieve their objectives. Goal setting is sort of like New Year’s resolutions: easy to make, hard to achieve.
A business coach and advisor can help ensure that you and your leadership team set appropriately aggressive goals and achieve them. There are six steps to the process:
First, 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, elegant strategy for success.
Second, 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, organizational 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.
Third, create a dashboard of metrics to track goals over time and make mid-course corrections. Every executive should have a dashboard to track where progress is acceptable and where intervention is required.
Fourth, 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 organization – people that the leadership team 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.
Fifth, have a process to track progress and make any necessary corrections. The leadership team should agree to meet regularly to track and discuss progress – and bring in other personnel as needed.
Finally, know how to have conversations for accountability. It is up to the leadership team to hold everyone in the business accountable for results. The conversations required to hold people accountable vary depending on the situation and performance. Sometimes the manager needs to be directive, sometimes he or she needs to coach, and sometimes he or she needs to provide training and support. There are also explicit conversations required to set (or reset) expectations, acknowledge results, and provide incentives for performance.
Again and again we find managers who wonder why their people aren’t accountable for results. In our experience, the issue resides with the manager, not the people. You get what you tolerate in business. If you aren’t setting and tracking the right goals and putting in place processes and conversations to manage by goals, you shouldn’t point the finger for poor performance at anyone but yourself!
The Six Essential Steps to Having Your Business Achieve Its Goals - To learn more about this author, visit Andrew Neitlich's Website.
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The Six Essential Steps to Having Your Business Achieve Its Goals
By Andrew Neitlich
It has become stale at this point to discuss goals and achieving goals. Everyone knows what it takes to set and achieve goals, and there is no shortage of acronyms (e.g. GOALPOST) to help managers remember that goals are time bound, measurable, significant, etc.
This begs the question of why – if everyone knows how to set and keep goals – so many businesses fail to achieve their objectives. Goal setting is sort of like New Year’s resolutions: easy to make, hard to achieve.
A business coach and advisor can help ensure that you and your leadership team set appropriately aggressive goals and achieve them. There are six steps to the process:
First, 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, elegant strategy for success.
Second, 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, organizational 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.
Third, create a dashboard of metrics to track goals over time and make mid-course corrections. Every executive should have a dashboard to track where progress is acceptable and where intervention is required.
Fourth, 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 organization – people that the leadership team 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.
Fifth, have a process to track progress and make any necessary corrections. The leadership team should agree to meet regularly to track and discuss progress – and bring in other personnel as needed.
Finally, know how to have conversations for accountability. It is up to the leadership team to hold everyone in the business accountable for results. The conversations required to hold people accountable vary depending on the situation and performance. Sometimes the manager needs to be directive, sometimes he or she needs to coach, and sometimes he or she needs to provide training and support. There are also explicit conversations required to set (or reset) expectations, acknowledge results, and provide incentives for performance.
Again and again we find managers who wonder why their people aren’t accountable for results. In our experience, the issue resides with the manager, not the people. You get what you tolerate in business. If you aren’t setting and tracking the right goals and putting in place processes and conversations to manage by goals, you shouldn’t point the finger for poor performance at anyone but yourself!
The Six Essential Steps to Having Your Business Achieve Its Goals - To learn more about this author, visit Andrew Neitlich's Website.
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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