Most people accept that having goals is better than not having goals. But then very few people actually have goals. Why the contradiction?

This is what people say:

I’ve got goals already!

I want to be slim, rich, travel to Australia, run the London marathon. These are not goals. They are dreams.  Dreams are fine. A lot of goals start as dreams. But goals are different. They are written, precise, measurable, have an associated plan and a timescale for completion.

I don’t know how to set goals.

This is sadly believable because we are not taught how to do it at school. There’s a process for generating and delivering goals. The process is not fool-proof. But life isn’t a game of perfection. It’s about stacking the odds in your favour.

I think I’ll fail.

Well, don’t set a goal that you think you will fail to achieve. In order to be motivated we need to believe we have a pretty good chance of success. So set a goal you can achieve. But here’s the good bit – in time, this repetition of success will embolden you and you will set more challenging goals until you are routinely achieving goals that would have seemed impossible a few years ago.  And in any event, it is not setting high goals and failing to achieve them that is the worlds’ problem, it is setting low goals and achieving them.

My friends will laugh at me when I tell them my goal.

So don’t tell them. And, in time, get new friends.

I don’t need goals; I know what I’m doing.

You do, to an extent. But you can stagger around in the fog, sort of heading in the right direction and you will, in the round, make progress. But having goals is like driving on a sunny day with clear views and a map. You will also make progress, but an awful lot more of it.

I have goals…in my head.

See above.

Life is too unpredictable.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’re going to take off and then make a right turn until the nose of the 747 is pointing directly at London. Then, we’re going to relax for the next 7 hours. The cross winds, turbulence and general lack of order in our atmosphere means we may land anywhere from Reykjavik to Algiers. But hey, life’s unpredictable. Thank you for flying with Unpredictable Airways.”

Don’t get me wrong. Sometime we have to simply react to external events. But let’s not sacrifice all self-determination because occasionally life throws us a wobbler.

Goal setting starts are a chore, becomes a discipline, then a trusty tool. By that point you realise goal setting is the greatest skill you can learn. And the thing about skills is – you can learn them!

Success comes from goal-directed action.

Start small – have one goal. Set it now. What would you like to achieve by the end of this week that you would not have done if you had not read this blog post.

Do it now – take 2 minutes. You’re worth it.

I was inspired to write on this topic by Brian Tracey www.briantracey.com. Despite sharing a surname, he isn’t one of the Thunderbirds, but if that was his goal, he’d be one.

There’s two guys. Each is standing on a box and holding one end of the same rope. The rope is ten feet off the ground. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get over the rope.

How do you do it? (You cannot tickle them to get them to lower the rope.)

Well, you could get a big step ladder, climb up and jump over. Or you could use a trampoline. Or, if you have the technique, you could pole vault. Or Fosbury Flop yourself over the rope.

Each of these approaches has their pros and cons. They will have their own relative success rates. Some need equipment – a trampoline, a pole. Some do not. But the point is they all work.

So far so good.

Now, the rope is one hundred feet in the air.  Don’t ask me how the guys did this, but they did.

How do you get over it? Trampoline? Step ladder? No. You need a new approach. Maybe a helicopter; or you could build a staircase; or fire yourself out of a cannon; or use a jet pack.

The point is the approaches that get you over the ten foot high rope don’t work with the one hundred foot high rope. They may work with a fifteen foot high rope, or maybe even a twenty foot high rope, but there will come a time when they are not up to the job. The current processes, technologies and approaches only get you so far. To hit the heights – the one hundred foot high rope –  you need new means.

It’s the same in business. Whatever it is you do now…your marketing; your strategising; your productivity; your product and service development; how you deliver your value; your logistics; your systems and processes; everything that makes up your business, or department:  each is either -

a) Inadequate

It can hardly get you over a one foot rope, never mind a ten foot rope. Your trampoline has lost its spring. Your Fosbury is more of a Fop than a Flop. Or,

b) Adequate

Adequate for your needs. Not over-engineered, or creaking at the seams. Sufficient. It does the job. It is reliable. Fit for purpose. Or,

c) Over-engineered.

It can get you over the one hundred foot rope. Even although you can see only the ten foot rope. This may be a good thing as you are prepared for the future. Or it may just be a cost, because helicopters are more expensive than trampolines.

You will probably have a mix of a, b and c in your business/organisation.

Here are some critical questions –

Q1 What do you do today to generate sales?

Q2 Can these activities generate a five-fold increase in sales?

Q3 If not, what changes do you have to make to these activities, or what new activities do you have to adopt to generate a five-fold increase in sales?

Q4 If you imagine increasing your sales five-fold over the next 2 to 5 years, what supporting systems and processes in your business will become inadequate and in what order?

Q5 How will you deal with the answer to Q4?

If you take the time to answer these five questions thoughtfully you will end up with the bones of a good growth strategy. You will be getting ready for the one hundred foot rope.

This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on Process – Part II.

“It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.” – W Edwards Demming

Lights out…

I bought my current home about ten years ago. I had the house completely redecorated from top to bottom. Now, in the bathroom, there are 6 halogen spotlights in the ceiling. Every twelve months or so, when one bulb pops, the others also pop within about two days. This has been going on for a decade. It’s the same in the kitchen.

I drove three examples of the same model of car. The water pump failed on each at the same mileage, plus or minus 3%.

I have two televisions in my house. One is 29 years old and the other 22 years old. Both work fine (although they are somewhat bulky).

Before 1980, air passenger fatalities varied between 1 and 2 per billion passenger kilometres flown. Since 1980, it’s been zero, give or take.

It never used to be like this. I remember lying in bed as a schoolboy listening to my Dad trying to start the car. The new car. Thank you British Leyland. I remember when light bulbs used to fail at random, and often. Things would break. Clocks would stop. Planes would fall out of the sky.

What’s going on..?

What’s happened in manufacturing over the last few decades is amazing. The processes companies use to make stuff have been analysed, defined and managed to ensure that every item that is made, as far as is practical and merited by its importance, is the same as the one before, and the one after. That’s why the lights and the water pump fail at the same time (after a long time) and my TVs haven’t failed at all. And mechanical failure in planes is so infrequent.

Genius..!

No more Quality Control (sifting out the inferior stuff and throwing it away, along with what it cost to make). Now we have Quality Assurance (making sure we understand our processes so that we don’t make rubbish in the first place.) Genius!

Not just for stuff…

But it’s so much wider. It’s not just about product quality. Almost everything is a process. You need a process to understand where you’re going (strategy). You need a process to make it happen (operational strategy, usually marketing and one other key process, perhaps project management, or whatever it is that delivers your value). You need a process to get the very best from your most able people (personal productivity).

That is not to preclude creativity (here’s a newsflash – creativity is a process as well. The reason most people prevent themselves from being creative is because they fear looking foolish.)

Not convinced..?

You may think this is tosh. You may think there’s some special foo-foo dust that delivers your results. That’s not management. That’s hope. And as they say, hope is not a method. Hope is not a process.

W Edwards Demming, whom I quoted at the top, also said “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

What’s for lunch…

Without defining the critical processes that will turn your dreams into reality, you’re at monumental risk from any competitor who does define these processes. They will eat your lunch and anything else they fancy.

Having great people is necessary but not sufficient. Do you have well meaning people who never quite hit the heights? Their attitude is good, they have sufficient IQ points, they do the hours, but they never set the heather alight. They never sparkle.

What’s wrong with them? Well, it’s probably their manager. The manager who doesn’t see the road to success as being the excellent execution of a few well-honed processes. The manager who believes in foo-foo dust.

Success is a process.

Mark

PS If you want to read the first Pearl on Process go here http://blog.weareppp.com/?p=65

This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on…

Process

You don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of achieving anything in any organisation unless you have systematised everything you can.

When I was a young boy…

…I travelled across the Pennines to work in north Manchester at ICI, Purchasing and Supply. My first commercial job. This department was ISO registered. There was a procedure for everything. I didn’t know the first thing about purchasing and I wasn’t going to ask anyone. Oh no! Not me.

I worked every day and then, in the evening, when everyone had gone home, I read the procedures – 2 hrs a night. After 2 months, I knew how purchasing and supply worked. It did nothing for my negotiating skills, or commercial brain. But that’s not what procedures are for.

It takes two…

The skills part lies parallel to the procedure. One is not a substitute for the other.

Without skills, flexibility, experience and creativity: the procedure is a hollow shell.

Without procedure: skills and experience remain largely untapped.

My background has…

…largely been in manufacturing. It’s highly regulated. We had procedures for most things – manufacturing, health and safety, HR, how to walk to your office with a hot drink…

…except sales and marketing.

Except sales and marketing. Oh yes. Sales people are creative, dynamic. They have the gift of the gab, they are flight of foot. They are supreme; saviours of the business. You cannot tether this sort of mercuric talent with procedures. Procedures are for the little people. The office-bound dullards, with their chit-chat about last night’s telly.

This is, of course, crap!

I have a dirty secret…

It’s staggering that so many sales and marketing people have managed to largely get away with not being proceduralised; not using a systematic process. I was one of them. Here’s a dirty secret – sales and marketing is a process. Sales people and marketing people are not born. You don’t need special talents. You don’t need the gift of the gab unless you’re selling from a market stall. You’re not doing that, are you?

Today’s winners…

…don’t allow the critical functions of sales and marketing to be anarchic. They understand it is one of the business’ core processes; the key word being process.

In marketing…

…they understand their Target Market Segments, their Ideal Customer Profile, and how to get to them. They understand their Value Proposition and their Unique Selling Proposition. And they act accordingly. They don’t spend a penny piece on any form of marketing communications unless the return-on-investment can be rapidly calculated. They do marketing experiments – cheap and quick. If it works; do more. If it doesn’t; stop. It’s a process.

If you run your own business and you do not have systematised marketing (i.e. getting those who are interested in what you do to come to you without you hunting them down, one-by-one; your life will be a misery.)

In sales…

…they know how to prospect (and why); how to sell; how to close; how to deliver; how to resell; how to ask for referrals. And when and why all these things should be done. It is not left to chance. They do them all, all the time. It’s not left to what the sales rep feels like doing today. It’s a process.

Of course skill and flair and all that other stuff are important; and with all else being equal they will win the day. But I’d rather have six solid guys following a process, than six prima-donnas who don’t know what day of the week it is, but they’re great guys you know…customers love ‘em.

Too many people…

…spend most of their time unfocussed, unguided, goalless, on autopilot, distracted, anxious, fearful and doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons at the wrong times. OK I exaggerate a wee bit, but not so much.

They certainly spend most of their time doing the one thing they think is important that they are comfortable doing. This is not enough. It really isn’t enough. It isn’t good enough. Not for their organisation. Not for them.

I have seen the light…

People can achieve great things. They have the potential. Challenge your colleagues, bosses and subordinates to develop processes for what they do. Because it’s the foundation that allows their brilliance to shine every day, not just on the occasional day when the chaos allows it.
Mark