Adventures in Leardership

What’s the Point?

By Evan Wise

Managing Director

Management One®

Look at any sport. Read the instructions for any game. The first thing you want to know is, “What’s the goal?” In football they are so blatant as to call it the goal line. In baseball it is called home plate. In checkers it is to capture all of the other persons pieces. Whenever there is a situation where you win or lose, success means identifying the goal and achieving it.

The problem is in many real world situations the goal is not clear. Choose the wrong goal and even if you achieve it, you can lose. Regardless of your view on what should be done now, most would agree that the U.S. chose the wrong goal in Iraq in 2003. We declared, “Mission accomplished” because we achieved the goal we set but it was the wrong goal. The same situation happens in businesses all the time. A goal is set to launch a new product and money, time, emotion and effort are poured into achieving the goal. The product is launched and sits on the shelves unsold. Wrong goal achieved!

What are the goals you have set for your business? If you said to make a profit you are wrong. Profit is what happens when you choose the right goals. Profit is what happens when you achieve the right goals. Profit is what happens when you manage your business effectively. Making a profit requires skill in so many different areas that it is much too broad to be a goal. So what is a goal? How do you create a good one? When we are hired to implement Winning@Businessâ„¢ we work hard with our clients to help them choose the right goals and achieve them. The following are some good guidelines to establish goals.

1. A goal must be simple and clear to everyone who has a part in achieving it. Too often a goal is only in the mind of the owner. Other times the goal is too all encompassing to be achievable (like profit). When the goal is not simple, the impact that each person has on the goal is not clear and direct. There are too many other factors that affect the outcome; no one really owns the goal.
2. If you can’t measure it, you can’t achieve it. When goals are subjective, everyone can have a different opinion about whether it was achieved or not. For example, “We want to make customers happier,” sounds like a great goal for any business. Unless you measure with surveys or repeat business, there is no definitive answer as to whether you were successful or not. Every goal must be stated in measurable terms.
3. Your steering team must own the goal. At Management One® the first endeavor is to replace an owner driven company with a team driven company. The owner still navigates but the team steers. Training and implementing that steering team to work effectively is important in the success of the business. The steering team must own and embrace the goal in order for it to be achieved. If not, and the owner is the only one that embraces the goal, the owner will need to be there constantly to be sure the actions are taken to achieve the goal. When the owner begins to micromanage he emasculates all his employees and he becomes the critical part of the business. He works 80 hours a week and is married to the business!
4. The steering team must create accountability for achieving the goal. Each steering team meeting includes follow-up and review to be certain the goal is being achieved.
5. Communication is always a huge part of every successful company. We work hard with clients to improve their communication processes and skills. When setting goals and achieving them, effective communication to every employee is important. The communication should also include an understanding of how the goal affects the way that person does his job. If the goal does not effect different actions, different results will not be achieved!
6. Give the goal a deadline. Goals that are open-ended are meaningless. That is why there is a goal line in football! Will you reach the measured goal in 3 months or a year? Try not to go longer than a year unless the goal truly demands that much time. (i.e. if you are building a nuclear power plant as the goal, it may take 7 years!)

There are other important keys to effective goal setting but these key steps will move a company in the right direction. A good consultant will help identify the right goal, help you state it in the right way and then stick around to be sure you achieve it.

I have worked on team management and business development in everything from a mom and pop haberdashery to a running a paper-mill; from managing a leading worldwide research and development center to the startup of Management One®, a company that implements team management and business development for client companies. The one thing that I have observed as a continuum through all the many different environments in which I have worked is the importance of teamwork through effective team management to success. When I started out working in 1968, the norm was the old command and control style of management. As a worker I hated it but there was no alternative. There was no team management; only a seasoned boss that shouted orders.

The environment is much different today. Business owners, department managers and even executives of large corporations are working with a different workforce than existed even 10 years ago. You are selling to a different customer than you did 10 years ago. The amount of information available, the flexibility that both customers and staff have to come and go as they please is so much greater and the level of competition is so much higher that it becomes imperative that you get everyone working together on your team. The issue that many face is how to do that effectively!

This blog will be about how team management and Winning@Business concepts help businesses to survive and prosper in this new environment. I may not give you all the answers you seek or need but I hope to make you think about your staff, your customers and your business in a different way. Often I will refer to Winning@Businessâ„¢, which is the process that we have developed to help businesses to implement the effective methods to achieve success in this new environment. I will share a lot of what I have learned over the last 17 years of moving my own departments, companies and clients to the 21^st century of profitable business. This process works and has been proven in youth groups, the Geneva Illinois High School football team, a rock group, retailers, manufacturers and service businesses over the past 17 years.

Please feel free to contribute, respond and participate in the discussion. If you would like to contact me directly you can do so through www.management-one.com or evan@management-one.com.

Evan Wise

Managing Director