Clarity leads to power. Everyone in your business should know where the company is heading. It’s not enough to give your people a general idea of the overall direction. Every team member should understand where you’re going as a team and their daily and weekly steps will get you closer to your goals.
With specific, clear strategies, you’ll make sure you know what you want to achieve and also guide your team on what they need to do every day to achieve success.
Clarity Gives Direction
When we come to doing business, we set goals in a certain way. That’s why I always ask people to think about what they want to achieve with their companies and to write those goals down.
Then, you must make it straightforward for everyone in your team to understand what goals you’re working towards because clarity leads to power. If you ask your team members what the goal of the company is, they should all give you the same answer; if they don’t know what the company needs to achieve, it will be hard for you to grow the way you want.
Set a common goal that everyone will be happy to achieve. Financial goals aren’t enough to motivate staff and drive growth as financial goals only motivate the owner – no employee will work hard just to help the owner make another million pounds!
When Brad Sugars, ActionCOACH founder and CEO, started his business, he wanted to “create world abundance through business re-education”. He gave everyone in the team a common goal, to help people grow their businesses, fulfil their dreams, and live extraordinary lives.
This common goal created direction and, by following it, everyone on the team has won something other than financial benefits.
Goals Can Engage and Inspire
People set three types of goals.
- Negative goals
Negative goals are meant to take you away from the negative – for example, “I don’t want to work 80 hours a week”. The problem with these objectives is that they only inspire you until the negative doesn’t hurt that much anymore.
- Positive goals
Positive goals express your will to move towards your dream. Instead of thinking about what you don’t want to do, focus on what you want to achieve, such as “I want to work five hours a day for four days a week.”
- Legacy goals
Legacy goals are massive and are meant to make a difference in the world and help you build something bigger than yourself. “I want the company to have large teams and create more profitability” is more than a simple positive goal.
When you’re looking to give your staff direction, you need a legacy goal, something huge that engages and inspires people. This way, you help your employees to look at the big picture and motivate them to work and finish their tasks every day.
Think about what you want to achieve in business. Then, create a common goal for it. If you don’t know where to start, you can begin with this simple goal: “to be the very best company in your industry in your area.”
Being the very best will motivate your staff. Because when you’re the best in your area, you’ll attract the best customers, and your people will work with the best clients.
The most important goal is the daily goal
Once you know what you want to achieve, break down the goals until you get to daily and weekly objectives. Monthly or annual plans alone don’t give you the same clarity as daily goals do. Make sure your staff know what needs to be achieved daily. Encourage your team members to write down what they need to achieve for the next day. And, to help them learn this process, start doing it yourself.
Every day write down your goals for the following working day. Pay attention to the difference between what you want to achieve and what you need to do, and write down the purpose, not the activities that will take you there.
When you focus on daily and weekly goals, the longer-term goals build themselves.
The trick is to always set SMART goals and then communicate these goals to engage and inspire. Change happens when you communicate effectively so there’s no room for misunderstanding.
Use video or emails to communicate the goal all the time. Measure progress, update the numbers regularly, and always share the vision of the company. And, if at some point, you change the goal, make sure to let the team know why you did it.
What’s Next?
Start giving people clear expectations and clear directions. Your team members need to be in a power situation, and that can only happen if you tell them clearly what you expect from them and how they’re going to get there.
Set multiple goals per team member. Start with one, or two and gradually add more tasks to reach a maximum of six goals per day in different areas.
Remember that the first person to receive their goals and achieve them is you!
Pay attention to how you communicate these goals to make your team members feel part of something. If they laugh at your ideas, it’s maybe a sign to rethink the team. Successful people will encourage you and work to help you achieve your goals. Unsuccessful people will slow you down to bring you to their level.
It’s going to be a challenge for you and your staff. Give your employees time – people need between 30 to 90 days to change. Be patient.
Clarity gives direction and makes you powerful. It enables you to do the things that need to be done to fulfil your dreams. If you would like to take your business to the next level, sign up for a free coaching session and we can talk about goal setting and how it will contribute to building a successful business.
