Important Goal Setting Steps

Its important to have goals in everything that we do. By having goals we are creating a action plan that we can set in our own way to make sure we can accomplish what we set out to do in the first place. Below are 5 action steps to use when setting your own goal steps.

Write down your goal – make sure it is specific, measurable, time-bound and fits who you are. Make sure the goal is realistic and attainable. Think about the goal, is it something you want to attain, or something you feel you "have to do"? Does this goal energize you? Does it make you feel excited?

Write down why the goal is important – what is it about the goal that is appealing or makes you want to strive for it? What happens if you do not achieve this goal?

Identify potential obstacles or risks or personal beliefs that could prevent you from achieving the goal and develop a plan for eliminating these pit-falls.

Take consistent action – put small steps on your calendar each day or each week. Then ask friends, family members or your coach to support your efforts and hold you accountable for your commitments along the way. Have them check in with you at least monthly on your progress.

Celebrate your accomplishment. It is important to honor your achievements because it helps provide focus and persistence as you implement your daily strategies. The simple act of “marking the achievement” strengthens the likelihood that we will achieve future goals, too.

Don't try to focus on to many goals at a time, by doing that you many not fully accomplish any of your goals.

The main point is to create goals that inspire your growth and make you happy!

Do you have strategies on how you set and achieve your goals? If so, we would love to hear about them! Please share your feedback below.

Risk Management: Asking the Right Questions

A young man I met this past summer, told me a story about how he and his buddies jumped off the 6th deck, 70 feet above the water, of a cruise ship. Before carrying out this escapade, they asked themselves three basic questions:

What are the possible consequences of jumping: Is it legal?
What happens once we are in the water, how do we get back on the boat?
How can we jump without injury?

To answer these questions, they

checked out the bylaws and found that it isn’t illegal to jump off a cruise ship;
researched the shuttle boat schedule so that they would have a way to get back on the ship after the jump;
conferred with an engineer on their team who advised them on the best spot to jump from to avoid currents and eliminate the chance of a jumper getting caught in the engine and ballast;
tapped into the expertise of a two-time olympic kayaker, who held the record for going off the highest cliff in a kayak and surviving.

They all jumped safely! The ship’s security pulled them in and even called the FBI. But they had to release them because as the jumpers already knew, there was no law against jumping off a cruise ship.

While it is unlikely that most of us will be jumping off a cruise ship, this story epitomizes the kind of research and forethought that should go into managing risk for any project. In business, there are some basic questions we should ask ourselves and our team before launching a new project.

Do I understand the context in which the project is taking place?
What is the worst case scenario?
What are the areas where things are most likely to go wrong?
Can I list the things that might not go according to plan?
What are the odds that things will go wrong in these areas?
What would the damage be?
What proactive steps can I take to prevent the project from going awry?
If something does go wrong, what actions can I have ready to lessen the impact or correct the situation?
Once I understand all of the above, how do I communicate this information to decision-makers so that they can make an informed decision?

On his website, www.managingsmallprojects.com, Jake Alexander recommends asking these questions to mitigate risk:

    •    Do we fully understand the goals and objectives for this project?
    •    How detailed and accurate are our cost and effort estimates for tasks?
    •    On which tasks are our estimates most likely to be wrong?
    •    Do we have enough committed resources to do the job?
    •    What kind of resource availability problems could we have?
    •    Do we understand the requirements and deliverables of the project?
    •    Do our resources have the skills to do the job?
    •    What changes might the customer or sponsor want that would effect the project scope?
    •    How likely will non-team members be able to live up to their commitments and deadlines?
    •    What kind of technical problems could we have?
    •    What could cause the project deadlines to change?

What questions would you ask? Discuss.

“Athletic math nerd looking for someone to hum Seinfeld Intro music with.....”

While I can’t take credit for the above title, I’ll bet it got your attention! It’s memorable, funny, and paints a concrete  picture of who you’ll be humming with.

The headline came from a talk by Dan Heath, who, with his brother Chip, wrote Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The two studied successful ideas that have stayed with us, from stories we read in childhood, to JFK’s announcement that he intended to land a man on the moon.

What they learned, says Heath, is that the set of rules that “sticky” ideas play by doesn’t change. “The things that made ideas successful in the time of Aesop, are still successful today,” he says in a 2008 presentation at the Creativity World Forum.

And that set of rules is a good one to keep in mind for anything you want to communicate: from a very complex idea to one that is easy to understand.

A sticky idea, says Heath, is

Simple —you only use 10% of your brain
Unexpected — see above post title
Concrete—it uses sensory language
Credible —uses data, for example, to back up the idea
Emotional - something about it gets people to care
Story - a sticky idea is often told as a story

You don’t need all six attributes to make your idea sticky, he says, but the more of them you use, the better.

What ideas have you shared that have taken hold? Why do you think they did? Conversely, what an idea that fell flat? How could you have made it more compelling?

I look forward to your comments.

In a Difficult Conversation, Silence Is Golden

Have you ever noticed that when people argue there are rarely pauses in their back-and-forth? That’s because those involved are ready to jump in at every opening. Lots of talking, very little listening are the hallmarks of an emotional situation.

When embarking on a difficult conversation, the last thing you want to do is lead with your emotions, because when things get emotional, people fight about emotions, not content.

Indeed, difficult conversations are not usually about facts or data – things that are easily proved or disproved. In an interview with Management Consulting News, Douglas Stone, co-author of Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, notes that these exchanges

“...are not about things that can be demonstrated to be right or wrong. They involve facts, but they are not at heart about facts. They are about conflicting perceptions, feelings, and values. They're not about what a contract says; they're about what a contract means.... They're not about what's true, but about what is important.”

As with any other conversation, when giving or receiving bad news, it is important to remain curious and to assume the other person’s intentions are positive rather than negative. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Ask questions!

Stone agrees. Going into the conversation with the assumption that we are right is a common mistake, and that assumption, he asserts, leads to another common error—not asking enough questions.

Handling difficult conversations by asking questions, like any other skill, requires practice.

In his HBR post about diffusing an argument with a neighbor, Peter Bregman notes, “When people learn a martial art, they practice the same move endlessly until it becomes automatic and available when they are ambushed. I realized that day that I needed the conversational equivalent. So I resolved to make a change. I created my new knee-jerk reaction: Ask a question.”

For those who may not have time to read Stone’s book, here are a few of his action tips as summarized by HBR blogger Daisy Wademan Dowling.
 
    1.    Keep your goals realistic. You can't ever eliminate the stress you'll feel around telling your supplier you're cutting back, but you can reduce it. Spend your energy on preparation - focus on developing your specific script.
    2.    Give bad news upfront. Tough messages should be simply and clearly stated in the first sentence.
    3.    Adopt the "And Stance". Take control of the conversation by pre-empting distractions, objections and blame by using "and". "I know you worked all night, and I know you want to do well, and I know you just joined the company, and I know the graphics people sometimes get the data wrong, and I know I could have been clearer in my directions to you...." And, and, and.
    4.    Get out of the "blame frame." Each person involved in the situation has a different objective story about what happened. Your goal is not to judge who's right and wrong, it's to manage to better outcomes in the future.
    5.    Paraphrase. To create clarity and to let people know you're genuinely listening, summarize what they're telling you -- and ask them to do the same.
    6.    Be prepared for bad reactions. Finger-pointing, denial, arguments and tears are all possible outcomes of tough conversations. You cannot control the other person's reactions, but you can anticipate them, and be emotionally ready.
    7.    Pretend it's 3 months or 10 years from now. Put the difficult conversation in perspective by thinking about the future. The conversations that are hardest right now will seem less daunting.

Want to Make the Complex Simple? Talk Like an Expert.

My colleague Judith, a writer who has interviewed numerous academics and high level executives, often tells this story.

“I was writing a piece on supply chains and interviewed a university professor and his doctoral student, who had co-authored an article on the topic. My first conversation was with the doctoral student. He may as well have been speaking in another language. He peppered his answers to my questions with specialized jargon. Then I spoke to the professor. He laid everything out in clear, understandable terms, using examples and stories to illustrate his ideas.

This contrast in communication is consistent with what I have found when talking to experts versus novices. The more experienced a person is in their field, the better they are at putting complex ideas into simple language.”

Developing the ability to make yourself understood by almost anyone is the key to becoming an effective communicator. Why wait until you have years of experience under your belt? Instead, do what the experts do.

When Al Gore talks about climate change, he does so in ways that almost anyone can follow. This clip from An Inconvenient Truth encapsulates the following tips for making the complex simple.

Avoid jargon and use everyday language. Few technical terms are used in this clip. When they are, they are explained and/or put into context.
Illustrate your points with pictures, graphs, and other compelling images. The graphic of the earth breathing in and out cements an unforgettable image in our minds.
Use examples that anyone can relate to.
Break down complicated concepts and processes into small steps, just as you would if you were learning a new skill. As a communicator, it is your job to do this for your audience.

Now, imagine you have to explain your job to someone who knows nothing about your field. Where would you start? What words would you use? What images might help you? And how would you illustrate the impact your work has on customers —in other words, how would you make it real and concrete?

By practicing these techniques to describe something you know better than anyone else, you will then be able to use them when explaining other concepts and processes.

And, you’ll sound like an expert!