52 Leadership Tips- #7

Goal Setting and Planning

Everywhere you turn you run into articles and stuff about goals. In my opinion many talk about goals and talk about planning but very few do it and do it well. Frankly, I think that goals can be overrated! Don't get me wrong, goals are great and are needed, but don't forget that everything rides on execution. I have meet and known many people that had the greatest plan, and a perfect balance in their goals but they always come up short because they lacked in execution. Always keep your eye on execution.

Now, back to the tip. There is no better time then now, the beginning of the year to lay out your 2005 plan, your roadmap if you will. Here are six steps that I try to follow in this process.

- define your objective
- define your reason
- define your major goals
- define your tasks
- define success
- review daily or weekly (daily can become very stressful!)

As a manager or a team leader you might have staff that reports to you. If so, it is very important to know their goals and make sure that they are inline with your expectations. How I go about this process with my staff is I have them write down their goals in a high level, bullet point format. I do not micro-manage so I allow them to do the rest, I just make sure that their bullet points match my expectations.

This is simple stuff that sometime we tend to overcomplicate. Have fun and have a plan. In closing let me say "define success" is very important, and often the hardest. Don't skip that step!