Tag: objectives

Leadership, Personal Development

Goals and Objectives Eat New Year’s Resolutions for Breakfast, Every Time!

Glenn Sommerville

Whether for personal or business purposes, with every New Year, there is an opportunity for all of us to make a fresh start! Are you prepared to take it in 2022?

Personally, I’ve never really been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions.  There are many statistics out there with some studies indicating that up to 80% of resolutions fail.  Why?  My view is they are usually just statements made without any real plan to achieve, lack support mechanisms, or don’t have new habit formation actions, to mention just a few.

I’ve set annual goals and objectives both personally and within my businesses for many years now.  I’ve learned a lot over the years and have developed what I have found to be a pretty good process.  Often due to our busyness or just plain procrastination, the hardest part is to get started, so I thought I’d try and assist you by providing some of my previous posts on topics that I think can be very helpful at this time of year. 

Getting yourself organized – Time management & weekly personal planning

6 Must have’s for any planning routine – If you are in need of getting yourself better organized so you stay in control and get the right things done, these 6 key points to incorporate in your planning process will be helpful.

An effective leaders to-do list – We all have “things” we need or want to get done on a regular basis, but often we lose track of them and they fall off our radar. This article gives an over view of a very powerful leader tool, that is sadly too often overlooked, not understood, or assumed to be only for manufacturing. Not giving it away here so as not to discourage you from checking it out first!

Free personal organizer/planner download – Free down load of the template I use for my personal organizer and weekly planner. If you don’t have one, this should give you a good starting point that is ready to use, or you can easily revise to fit your personal needs.

28-Day Habit Tool – Forming a new habit is always challenging.  We’ve worked with many people over the years to help them form new habits using the 28 Day Habit Tool.  Set a new habit and track your progress.  Reflect daily as to the barriers and challenges you faced completing the new habit and keep at it.  If you miss any day… don’t despair, but rather reflect, come up with mitigation, and move forward with the habit, BUT… reset the 28 days and start again.  Continue until you achieve 28 consecutive days of the new habit.

Leadership Hacks – Getting your stuff together – a 2.5 hour live virtual seminar with over 50+ proven tips and techniques to get yourself organized and stay in control without having to spend a career figuring it all out.

Setting goals and objectives – Personal or for business

Reflections vs Resolutions – A critical step before setting annual goals and objectives is to first reflect on the previous year. In my opinion, reflection is far more important than any resolution. In this post we discuss why resolutions typically fail and the steps to conducting a good reflection.

Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives – Mission Statements – Whether it’s for personal use or professionally, having a defined mission is very important. This article walks through what a mission statement is comprised of and provides a couple of personal examples to help demonstrate.

Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives – Goals & Objectives – Providing both personal and organizational examples, this article outlines how to create strategies, goals and objectives.

Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives – Tactics or Action Plans – Once again providing both personal and organizational examples, we review the steps to take to develop robust actions to achieve your goals & objectives.

If you’d be interested in a complimentary Lunch & Lead Series topic on Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives, leave us a comment or contact us to let us know your interest.

HPL also facilitates the annual business planning process for our clients.  If you’re interested and want to learn more, please contact us to discuss your needs.

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com

Personal Development, The Leader

Leader Standard Work & Hitting Targets

Glenn Sommerville

Combining a robust leader standard work routine with setting and hitting targets can be a powerhouse that delivers results!  It’s not just a shot in the dark!

If you have followed my posts, you’ll know that I’ve been a strong proponent of leader standard work (LSW) for a long time, however, I was reminded recently of the power of combining standard work and the setting and hitting of targets.

Each month I reset my standard work for the new month.  It starts by reviewing the previous month and reflecting on what worked, didn’t work and why, and identifying any new priorities.  Then the baseline is revised by making some adjustments, adding or deleting tasks, or changing the frequency of some tasks.  I also include certain non-work items within my LSW.  These are things that are for personal or professional development, important family responsibilities, or when I’m trying to create a new habit.

Although this is a personal example, it still shows the power of combining LSW and targets.  At the beginning of last month when I was doing my LSW review I found that I was not happy with my daily exercise results.  It had been very inconsistent.  Although I was running, the frequency was very intermittent and inconsistent.   There were always reasons why for each miss, but when seeing the results for the month, none of them mattered, the result was the result and it wasn’t what I wanted.  So,  I decided I needed to do something about it!  First, I added a “Daily Exercise” task to my LSW, and second, I set a distance target for the month.

The month started off well.  I was exercising more regularly and I was well on my way to achieve my distance target.  It was working!  Then, by conscious choice, I missed about a week.  With about a week to go in the month, even if I got back to my routine, I wouldn’t make my distance target.  At least, not doing what I had been doing before the break in the routine.  I couldn’t make up for the days I didn’t exercise, but I could do something different for the days remaining in the month.

I changed the time of day when I would exercise.  This helped overcome some of the challenges (a.k.a excuses) that were creating barriers to my daily exercise.  Then, I started running further than I had been before to make up some of the distance.  Some may consider running further than usual was somewhat cheating, and perhaps it was since the intent was not the distance per se, but rather to exercise regularly.  However, on more than one occasion in that final week of the month, I exercised when I probably wouldn’t have.  I had a strong desire to hit and exceed my distance target, AND, I wanted to check off my LSW each day indicating that I had exercised.  It worked, I exceeded my distance target with a day to spare, but I ran the last day of the month anyway so that I would have exercised every single day for that last week.

Maybe a simple personal example, but combining LSW and targets is a powerful tool and is equally effective in a business environment.  The target will give you the motivation to keep working at it and to find ways to achieve it, while the LSW will give you the reminder and sometimes push to take the necessary steps, or to complete the appropriate tasks, necessary to achieve the target.

In summary, here’s a few key points:

  1. Reflect on your LSW each month and reset it based on lessons learned and new priorities.
  2. LSW can include personal and professional items.  It’s yours, so make it work for you!
  3. Set challenging targets, then look at how to combine with LSW to assist in achieving the targets.
  4. Don’t beat yourself up for missing some LSW items when looking back, but rather figure out why you missed them and implement mitigation actions to achieve them going forward.

AAEAAQAAAAAAAA2JAAAAJDMyMDQxYzdmLTFjYWYtNDBkNC1iODZhLTRhNWIzMTBlMzAzZARelated Posts:

For more information on setting up and using leader standard work, check out this other post “Leader Standard Work is for, well, EVERYONE!”

 

Contact me:

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com.

 

 

Leadership, Personal Development

Are You Accomplishing Your Goals?

Glenn Sommerville

Did you set goals this year?  If so, when was the last time you checked-in on them to see how things are progressing?  When?  Oh boy, it’s likely time you did a check!

In January there were a series of posts that stepped through the process of setting personal and professional goals and objectives.  If you missed this series, they are summarized with the links at the bottom of this post for your reference.  Now that you are a few months in since setting your goals and objectives, please use this post as a reminder and catalyst to do a check-in and reflection on them.

Some key considerations for your review:

Relevance of the goals & objectives – Things change quickly in this age!  Review your goals and objectives to ensure they are all still relevant.  If not, scratch them off and move on.  Add critical new ones as necessary and be sure to develop tactics and action plans for them.

Target check – Check to see how you are progressing towards your target.  If on target, great, but confirm that it is your actions that are driving this and not just good luck!  If not on track to hit the target, it’s important to dig deep to understand why not and then adjust your tactics and actions accordingly.

IMG_20190427_1843462Action plan effectiveness – Review your action plans and record your status within your plan.  Indicate which ones are completed, in progress or not started.  Confirm if you are on track schedule wise; on, behind, or ahead of schedule.  Consider if there are any barriers that you hadn’t previously considered that may impact your plans and develop mitigation for each of them.  Identify any ground that needs to be made up.  In other words, do you need to double down on some to get them back on track?  Rate your actions for their effectiveness based on whether they are delivering the expected results or not.  Cancel the ineffective ones if you think course correction isn’t in the cards and develop new ones to overcome and get back on track.

Don’t despair – Particularly if you are reviewing your personal goals and objectives, don’t despair if this is the first time your have looked at them since setting them up.  That’s why we have this post!  The good news is, you have now looked at them, right?  So don’t get frustrated and know you are not alone, but do set yourself on a refreshed path to get on track and achieve what you set out to achieve.  Don’t give up!  Do it!

No! Try not!  Do or Do not, there is no try!

– Yoda

Execution – To ensure execution of your actions, you needed to have “operationalized” them.  Take this opportunity to honestly reflect on your execution and be self-critical.  You might be the biggest problem stopping you from achieving your objectives!  Are you following through on the methods you had determined to operationalize your action plans?  If not, why not?  What and why are they not working?  What do you need to do differently?  Do it!  Adjust your plan and go!

Plan, Do, Check, Act/Adjust – Setting goals and objectives follows the continuous PDCA1improvement cycles of Plan, Do, Check, Act/Adjust or PDCA beautifully.  What we’re doing now is obviously the check phase.  Once you’re done this part adjust your plans and start doing again!  Going forward, ensure your operational steps include the full PDCA cycle, very frequently!

 

If you missed this original goals and objectives series or just need a refresh, the posts are summarized with the links below for your reference.

Reflections Vs Resolutions – It’s That Time Of Year!

Although written with the Holiday Season in mind, this is still a timely post to refresh yourself on the importance to reflect on your goals and objectives.  Key points to think about that are relevant at any time of year are covered in this post.

Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives – Mission Statements

Whether you are doing so as an individual, family, or for an organization, establishing a mission is a critical first step.  A mission acts as your compass which will establish your direction and keep you on track.  This post discusses mission statements and the values that support them.

Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives – Goals & Objectives

After the mission is created, the next step is to develop the areas of focus to be deployed to achieve the mission.  This post describes how to set meaningful goals.

Setting Personal and Professional Goals and Objectives – Tactics or Action Plans

The tactics or action plans are what brings goals and objectives to life and makes things happen!  This post discusses how to convert goals to objectives and specific actions, including some tips on how to “operationalize” your plans.

Contact me:

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com