Goal Setting, Strategic Visioning, Mission Values etc

It’s amazing with the number of people I have spoken to over the past two months, who don’t seem to have set this years goals. It seems appropriate to share this article on Goal Setting, and to provide a Goal Setting template to get you started. Well, three times now that template has been among the most requested items for the year, so I'm going to stick to what's working for you!

The Sheer Necessity of Having a Vision & Sharing It

If you have a Vision for your business, now is the time to take it down from the wall, slip it out of the glass, and ask yourself whether it's still valid. I suspect that if you have been thinking about it and talking about it with your team during the year, you will be ready to tweak it ever so slightly to make it perfect.

If you don't yet have a Vision written out and known to all, then sit down now and do one! It's that important, and you're going to be amazed at the effect a well-thought-through and articulated Vision (you have to talk about it) can have in terms of aligning the activities and priorities of everyone on your team.

What is a Vision?

A Vision is a clear statement of what you want your business to become - the "Picture of Perfection" of how it could or will be.

I recommend you use Laurie Beth Jones's (The Path) approach:

She said your Vision Statement should be:

A single sentence
Understandable to a 12 year old, and
Recallable at gunpoint.

Working Out Your Mission Statement

If you think of your Vision as "where we want to arrive", you can think of your Mission Statement as "the path you will use to attain your Vision".

As such, it needs to be a clear promise to yourself, your team and your Customers about what products and services you will provide, and how you will provide them, so as to achieve your Vision.

Why Values Are "The Most Important Thing In The World"

"Values" are the words or short phrases you use to answer the question, "What is most important to you in the context of your XXXX" where XXXX can be "your business", "your role in the business", "your relationship with your children", etc. As such values are "contextual" - ie, you may find yourself giving different answers for the values you hold dear in different contexts.

Defining your values is like defining the boundaries of your Mission Statement, the boundaries of the path you will follow to achieve your Vision. Values are the limits beyond which you will not go in pursuit of your Vision. For example, if one of your values is "safe workplace", everyone in your business will understand that safety will not be sacrificed for profit.

Thus, when you are clear on your values, and when you have shared those with your team, there is little need for a lot of rules since most "rules" (i.e., the right thing to do in a situation) can be inferred from applying your values.

Verne Harnish maintains that the habits that made JD Rockefeller rich were:

Have a small number of rules (values)
Repeat yourself often
Act in accordance with your rules.

If you don't have well-known and clearly articulated values, then you need a lot of rules!

Without Goals Everyone Underachieves

Sports psychologist Randall Rattan said, "Difficult goals, when accepted, result in superior performance," and the corollary to that is that, "without challenging goals you will experience performance that is less than what is possible".

A moment's reflection on the fact should convince you to allocate time right now to negotiating goals with yourself for your personal and professional journey; negotiating goals with each of your team members so that you create opportunities to praise and recognise - and occasionally - reward them.

Any person in your business who does not have two or three clear key performance indicators (KPIs) upon which they are focussed, is underperforming, is under-motivated, and is under-rewarded and under-recognised. Now that you know that, I'm sure you'll address any such oversight really quickly. ;-)

Taking Things to the Next Level

If you do a good job on negotiating, clarifying and articulating your Vision, Mission, Values (VMV) and Goals, and if you find that those simple steps make a material difference to your own and to your business's performance, imagine how much better things could be if you involved a trained professional to take you to the next level?