Many Paths, One Goal

A billboard for a local university prominently displays those 4 words.  It’s a statement that’s applicable in many circumstances – someone wanting a college degree, an athlete training for the Olympic Games, or you running your business.  For this post, we’re talking about goals related to business achievements.

Start with the end in mind – What’s your goal?  What do you want to achieve?

A goal is your vision of the future state of your business.  Many components make up a business and, likewise, there can be a multitude of goals – grow revenue, reduce costs, offer a new product, hire new personnel, sell part of the business, complete a merger, etc., etc., etc.  Goals can be large, like digital transformation, that impact many areas of your business.

Do you have a plan to get there or are you taking whatever path presents itself?

Any path may take you to where to you want to go, but a documented plan can help keep you on track to complete your goal, faster if possible.  There will be tasks that have dependencies on other tasks before they can be completed.  An example is defining your requirements before you select the software you want to install to move your business through its digital transformation journey.

When you share your goals and action plans with your team, they can become part of the solution.  Write down your goal(s) and communicate them broadly within your organization.  Your team may have better solutions to incorporate into your action plan.  Your team is on the front line, and they have ideas and more detailed information about how your business actually runs.  Use their knowledge to help define better action plans to achieve your goals.  Once your goal(s) and action plans are set, build enthusiasm by sharing tasks with your team to help you achieve your desired outcome.