So you’ve realised that vision, mission and values are important for your business and that it doesn’t require you to be a big corporate to get value in embedding these in your strategic planning. You’ve also realised that a written down, well thought through business plan will also help to keep you on track and also increase your chances of success.

But what does success actually look like to you?

Often, people will talk about having success and will not be able to clearly describe what this means to them. If you don’t know what ‘success’ will look like for you, how will you know if you have achieved it, or if you are way off-beam?

This is where great goal setting comes in!

Today I am going to talk a little today about goals, but am going to consciously avoid writing another article about SMART (and all the variants in existence!) SMART is a topic that has been written about to death elsewhere and I believe there is much more to the setting of goals and objectives than this.

When approaching your business plan, it is important to give due time to goals and objectives as trying to tackle these will help you to gain clarity over the fundamental questions about your business, such as ‘Why are we in this?’ ‘What do we want to achieve from this?’ ‘What will the world be like once this product or service is out there?’

Getting a clear appreciation of what the possible future may look like is critical to any business: people enjoy a journey as much as a destination, and the establishment of specific goals that help to capture the essence of your vision, mission, and values is a powerful enabler for this to happen.

Here are some useful tips to consider when devising your business goals:
  1. Write a list of all the goals you want your business to achieve in the next 1, 3, 5 and 10 years.
  2. Chop out most of them and leave three goals for each of those milestones. The three for each should be the ones you consider the highest priority: if it is to make a profit of X by the end of year 1, state it! Only include the ones that you consider most critical.
  3. Allow your team to carry out steps 1 and 2 and see what they come up with. If they have been a part of your vision, mission, and values setting, you might find that they come up with similar goals. If they don’t, review whether their goals are actually of value to you – they may have come up with something you hadn’t considered.
  4. Link any team objectives and rewards to fulfilment of the goals – there needs to be a ‘golden thread’ running from the business goals to the goals set out for teams and individuals to ensure that they do not simply become another hollow mantra.

 

Finally, remember these key takeaways:
  • Any team or individual goals should be in alignment with the strategic business goals.
  • All goals should have a customer focus, otherwise they are simply outputs, rather than outcomes.
  • All goals should be complete (this is where I break my rule and remind you of SMART!)
  • All goals should be championed by all, at all levels. Review them regularly and ensure that progress towards achieving them is seen by everyone.

 

I am currently offering a 30 minute goal setting call to any business owners who feel that they need a shot of support to get them going. If that is you, then please get in touch by emailing Cari Tottman on adminessex@actioncoach.com

 

To your success,

Sean