Generate Results & Staying Focused

Comments

To generate results you need to focus on a goal.

Goal setting has always been important and a core principle
of any personal development and productivity improvement process.

But goal setting is more important than ever because it is so easy and common
to become distracted and defocused on what is truly important.

I could say that it is because of technology, the web, emails and the influx of new and interesting
information and data to all our connected devices. And that is true.

But the accessibility of information and data is both an opportunity and a curse. All this information
can make decision making more precise if the right information is available at the right time.

But too much information is so prevalent that it can cloud decision making and cause confusion.

The solution is to set goals and keep reminded of them daily. Goals need to be set based on a strategy.
That is where all that information can be a blessing. But strategy takes time. So one must take the appropriate
time to establish a strategy after doing some research and analysis and then set goals.

The challenge then becomes staying on track and blocking out all the noise and distractions that show up every day
in the form of emails, messages etc.

Goals become the barometer to know whether what you are working on is indeed the right thing.

For those who want to be better organized, feel less stress and accomplish more of what produces results,
a goal setting training or coaching would be a fantastic investment.
Here are three things that you must do when setting a goal

1. Put it in writing
2. Set a due date
3. Make it measurable

You can download a goal setting form on this page of our website under the training column to help you apply those three tips.

Stephen Goldberg

Goal Setting 101; get back to basics

Comments

Being a fan of hockey, last night I read an article about the surge in winning games by the New Jersey Devils. They were running almost dead last in the NHL prior to the New Year.

Since a few weeks they have a new former coach, Jacques Lemaire, who had helped the team win several Stanley Cups. Now he has gotten them back to winning games and there record over the past few weeks has been 12 wins, 2 ties and 1 loss. Pretty impressive for a team that could not find a way to win prior to his arrival.

What did he do? He got the team back to mastering the basics of good hockey, which begins with solid defence of quickly passing the back out of the home zone so at to create offensive opportunities.

Now you may be reading this post many months after it has been posted, but I can bet that if you pick up the sports section you may find another team going through what the Devils did. It could even be in another sport. The point is that if you get away from the basics of the game your track record for success can be put in jeopardy.

The same is true for success in business and in life. To win the game you need to be focused on a key goal. Not 10 but really 1 or 2 as more than that creates stress and confusion. You can have sub goals attached to your key goal and that makes sense because there are always small steps to take to reach the bigger goal.

I recently listened to a recording by Earl Nightingale who provides clarity about the principle behind goal setting and positive thinking in the The Strangest Secret. He recorded this in 1956 but this recoding still is listened to by million each year. Here it is taken from YouTube.

As well you can get going on goal setting by downloading this goal setting form from our website or use the year in review PowerPoint.

Leadership and team development performance management process; case study

Comments

This post continues my case study of a client with whom I am coaching on implementing a win-win agreement process with the goal of building a high performance management team. The idea is to provide the support to implement what was learned during the Leadership Styles and Team Development workshops that took place recently. Please refer to my previous posts in this category to see the progression of activities that took place up to now.

I met again with the president last week to finalize our win-win agreement together. This included completing his performance commitment form that I had modified after our last meeting. He needed help writing the personal development goal relative to the tendency of his type that was most important to overcome. In his case the tendency was being to dominant and he realized that it is easy for him to take charge and direct people to do things according to his perspective. He realized that this closed the door for his managers to participate more in the decision making process and to become more autonomous.

We also completed our discussion and agreed on the support performance commitments that he required from me to be successful in his commitments to the process. We also identified how we were to measure progress towards his expectations.

In this system we developed a way to measure each commitment based on a rating scale of 1 to 10. This is prepared by each party before a review session and then there is an exchange to discuss each person’s rating and perspective. This is also where both parties need to practice skills such as active listening and coaching, as well as keeping the others person’s motivation and needs relative to their type in mind.

This week I will conduct a performance review using the aforementioned approach and form and then discuss how to set up the win-win  agreements with his direct reports.

Stephen Goldberg