When it comes to goal achievement, we as leaders (and individuals), for the most part, have got it all wrong.
What follows applies to you from a coaching and mentoring perspective, and will help you create more leadership influence (as well as provide you with great messages in your leadership communication).
As leaders, we help teams, departments and individuals set goals. And we expect them to reach them in addition to their regular work. This isn’t necessarily the problem, though it can be a major hindrance as people never get to the goal work, because of:
- procrastination
- the trumping of the urgent over the important
- lack of goal clarity
These problems warrant blog posts of their own, but none are a big surprise to any of us. But these aren’t the reason we have it all wrong.
We have it wrong because we believe we can reach our goals “a little at a time.” That makes as much sense as dusting one piece of furniture today, another tomorrow, and another the next day. Once the polish and the rag are out, it is much more efficient to finish the job right then.
But we do the same thing with our goals.
We try to make a little bit of progress, a little at a time. I’m not opposed to this in theory, and incremental progress can be valuable. But if this is the ONLY way you try to reach goals, especially in a group, you will never reach ultimate success.
Because we must polish all the furniture at once. We must, schedule time to take concentrated, massive action on a gaol to make big progress.
Put everything else aside.
Focus on the task.
Create momentum.
In these bursts of effort you will create greater progress and spur your thinking. New ideas will pop up, new connections will be made. Greater excitement and passion will feed further development and progress.
While we don’t want to discourage incremental progress, it should be done effectively, without the false feeling of progress that comes from too much multi-tasking, and for maximum results should always be done in connection with periods of MASSIVE, focused action.
How do we take advantage of this idea as a leader?
As leaders we can model, teach, plan for and expect this behavior. We can schedule time designated for Goal achievement. You might even consider setting aside a full day for goal focused efforts only – leaving the core work alone – and expecting massive progress on goal oriented activities. (People often do this for office cleaning days – and while that might be helpful, which day will give you greater results? A day of cleaning your desk and files, or a day of focused goal achievement activity?)
If you want great goal results, apply this approach with all of your team leadership activities, and watch your progress towards your biggest oranizational goals grow rapidly.
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