Smart people set smart goals
- By Eugene Clark
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China.org.cn, February 4, 2015
EXAMPLE: A general goal would be I'm going to get better grades. Far better is I am going to develop and adhere to a regular and strict homework routine of 2.5 hrs per night. Then go on to detail exactly what you will do during those 2.4 hours.
" Cat: Where are you going?
Alice: Which way should I go?
Cat: That depends on where you are going.
Alice: I don't know.
Cat: Then it doesn't matter which way you go."
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Measurable
There is much truth to the saying, common in business and other organizations, that what gets measured gets done. It is important to think about a way to measure and track progress towards your goals. The more concrete these criteria can be the better. A good example is the sales process whereby the system tracks, hours on the phone, number of calls made, number of leads generated, number of appointments set, number of closes made, volume of sales, and so on. It is important not to have too many
Charting your progress toward the goal ensures you stay on tack plus you get the positive reinforcement of achieving your mini-goals along the way. When you get off track you get early notice and the opportunity to adjust your sails and set forth anew and once more on course towards achieving our goal.
Developing measures of progress involves asking 'how' questions. How much? How many? How often? How will you know when it is accomplished?
It is very useful to develop dashboards that use a traffic light system: green meaning that you are on track; yellow when you are just short; and red when you are far off target.
Don't try to measure everything. Many organizations make a mistake of adopting so many metrics that the participants are overwhelmed by detail and lose sight of the big picture. The detail is predominantly needed when you are conducting an analysis of what is going wrong.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)