READY–FIRE–AIM…

It must be your goal!

Thus far in this series I have written that leaders set the pace. I do not believe that many people, if any at all, will dispute that truth.

Leaders set the pace and leaders set goals.

Last week I delivered the first rule of goal setting; if you want to achieve a goal, it must be written down.

My second premise is this, if you want to achieve a goal, it must be your goal. Simply put, you cannot achieve another person’s goal. It simply will not work. Both reducing a goal to writing and then owning the goal are critical to success.

You say “OK Ron, so I get this on a personal level. But tell me how this works with goal setting in teams?”

You may also be wondering, “As a leader, why then would I set a goal and ask others to reach them?”

Answer:

An effective leader develops their goals first. Next, and this is the piece that many leaders do not get, the leader then presents their goals to the team and ask for an agreement from each team member to hit those goals. Once a team member agrees that the goals have merit and they are willing to work toward them, then the team leader has created dual ownership of the goals. Thus, everyone owns the goals.

Obviously, this is a different mindset of goal setting than most people are accustomed to using.

While I realize this may be a hard concept to digest, it works, it is effective, and it produces results.

Monday Challenge...

Do you have written goals for yourself?

Are these your goals or have they been given birth from someone or something else?

Do you have written goals for those people you lead?

Have you effectively created dual ownership of those goals?

If you have not taken these steps, I challenge you to begin today!

Happy Monday!