The word success is a ubiquitous
part of every businesses vocabulary.
Unfortunately the reality of success is becoming more of a rarity. When a business talks about success, what are
they really talking about? More often
than not, they are referring to the attainment of company goals, which in some
respects can be a barometer of successfulness, but without the knowledge of how
you reach them and the ability to sustain and repeat your success, attaining
your goals would be based on luck.
In my experience, I have seen two
basic types of corporate strategy with some organizations caught between the
two in one form or another: Luck based
and Success based.
While it is nice to be lucky once
in a while, trying to build a sustainable organization based on being lucky
will eventually result in its downfall when the luck runs out.
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Core
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Luck Based
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Success Based
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Knowledge
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Tribal Knowledge where infrastructure is built on
the way things have always been done.
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Legacy knowledge where infrastructure is built on
written documentation and consistency of content
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Strategy
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Business strategy is based on historical data and
basic underlying needs. Strategy is
determined by a few individuals and pushed to stakeholders.
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Strategy is simplistic in its design and based on
future needs. Strategy is determined
based on the needs of the stakeholders and is pulled from them.
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Data
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Data is either limited in nature or over abundant
without clear intention or attention to it integrity. Data is used to determine results instead
of driving changes.
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Data is concise in nature, being vetted before
being presented. There is a culture of
data integrity and data is used as a predictive tool instead of a reactive
one.
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Goals
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Goals are developed on a macro-level and are
often limited to financial milestones or results. Goals are also limited in scope and when
quantitative are difficult to adjust within the flow of the business.
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Goals are developed on a micro-level with each
person knowing and understanding their role.
Goals are designed based on the modification of behavior instead of
affecting results.
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Leadership
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Management is developed to maintain the status
quo and given limited power of information, authority and accountability.
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The roles of a leader are more clearly defined,
and each is given the ability to build their part of the business without
limitations on information, authority or accountability.
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Being truly successful is a sum
of everything you do. Success is an
understanding of not just the attainment of goals, but an in-depth knowledge of
what it took to get there and what it will take to sustain it.
Success isn’t something we sit back and get, it is something
we have to go after and hunt down.
Keys To Success
“Action
is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso
1.
Reaching a
Goal
2.
Tracking
your Methods and Progress
3.
Repeating
what you did
The ability to understand what
your goals should be is the first key in being able to reach them. There is a difference between a goal and a
dream. A dream is something you desire
if everything falls into place and you get to sit back and watch it
happen. A goal is a tangible desire you
can attain if you understand what the goal is comprised of and are willing to
work to reach it.
“Aim Small – Miss Small”
Goals should always be
quantifiable and be simple to understand.
Every goal should have a date of completion, and in some cases, this
date may serve as the quantifiable part of that goal. Goals should also be seen as a part of a
bigger picture and each goal should lead to a larger one.
Reaching
your Goals
Once you have set your goals, it is time to
get to work on reaching them. Reaching
your goals is dependent upon all of those involved knowing and understanding
the following items:
1. What are the goals? – each individual
within a group must know and understand exactly what the goals are.
2. What are their roles? – once you have
established the goals and communicated them to everyone involved, they need to
know and understand what they can do to help with the attainment of those
goals. Specific expectations must be
laid out to each member of the team responsible for reaching the goals.
3. How are they doing? – make sure to give
consistent and regular feedback to the people involved in reaching the
goals. Everyone needs to know on a
regular basis if they are meeting their expectations and tracking to their
goals.
So much of what we do as people
and as employees revolves around communication.
We utilize this word so often that sometimes it begins to lose some of
its luster and a lot of its meaning.
Communicating expectations in regards to being successful is about
ensuring that each part of your team not only has a responsibility in reaching
a goal, but understands thoroughly and completely what they must do to do their
part.
Communication is an ongoing
process. Just because you wrote it down
and handed it out doesn’t mean everyone can or will stay on task. Continue to provide information and
feedback. Let them know that all of the
work you put into coming up with a plan wasn’t just words on a piece of paper.
Empower your Team
Now that you have come up with a
plan and communicated the plan and each team member’s responsibilities and
expectations, let them do their part.
Empowerment is about trust and without that trust, you can’t hope to be
successful. Everyone who has a part in
your success needs to feel that their actions matter, and that they have some
control over their involvement and outcome.
Be there to teach, mentor, and assist, but trust the people you have to
do what you need them to do.
One of the biggest obstacles to
the success of any business is to have parts of your team feel like they don’t
have any control of their destiny or don’t feel like they are an important part
of the big picture. A company should be
led from the top, but powered from the ground up.
Negotiate
Obstacles
No plan, or nobody involved in a
plan is perfect: understanding that
basic truth is a key to being able to negotiate obstacles. There will be speed bumps or obstacles along
the road to success. Each time you reach
one of these, you must determine the crucial piece of information to move forward. Did the obstacle stem from a mistake or
from an issue?
Mistakes – Yes, people make mistakes,
and the only way to avoid that is to hire perfect people. If an obstacle arises because someone made a
mistake, the best thing to do is to use it as a learning and coaching example
so that those mistakes can be abated going forward. If someone continues to make a mistake, then
you have the decision on what to do with the employee. A periodic mistake doesn’t a bad employee
make. Mistakes are a great way to show
your support to your people, your reaction ability to your customer and a way
to determine the quality of your process.
Issues – Issues are different from
mistakes because they stem from the process instead of the person. You may have a combination where a person
makes a mistake that points out an issue or oversight with the process. If it is determined that your obstacle stems
from an issue, it is necessary to adjust the process to keep them from
recurring.
Track your
Progress
All goals have an 11th
hour or a point of no return. There will
come a time that no matter what you do, or how hard you work at it, there is
nothing you can do to reach them. The
way to ensure that doesn’t happen is to know where you are in relation to your
goal, how much further you have to go, and what has been working to get you
there.
Start Again
This is both the easiest and the
most difficult part of the process. If
you have truly succeeded at all of the points before this one, it will be easy
to repeat what you did well, and learn from your mistakes. If you didn’t learn anything, or weren’t able
to make a distinction between what worked and what didn’t, you are more than
likely doomed to repeat your failures.
Even if you hit your goal, if you
weren’t able to track it throughout the timeframe and competently repeat it
during the next cycle, you were lucky, not successful.
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