Business Management

Almost every business leader has goals for their business, their department, their team, and for themselves. That’s good since you can’t move forward without knowing where you are headed, but when I ask business leaders to list their goals, most of the time, their goals are about as clear as fog. This is what I hear:
· Our goal is to increase sales revenue and profit
· Our goal is to reduce shipping errors
· Our goal is to increase efficiency in production
· Our goal is to increase client retention
Yes, those are laudable goals but they are so lazy and so unclear that they are just meaningless platitudes or even worse – “wishes.”
In order to attain goals, one has to define them in a manner that the goals are clearly understood. “Goal Clarity” requires understanding at all levels of where we are today, where we want to be tomorrow (define tomorrow), and how we are to get there. So, rather than say, “Our goal is to reduce shipping errors,” the goal could be better stated: “Our goal is to reduce shipping errors from 5% to 1.5% by (insert date).
Now there is a specific measurement achievement and a specific date for achievement. Knowing, specifically what we want to accomplish and when we need to accomplish gives a clear focus to the problem and makes the process to achieve the goal relatively easy to design by determining:
· What shipping errors are being made?
· At what point in the shipping process?
· What are the causes of the most common errors?
· What changes in our process can be designed to eliminate those errors?
· What investment in time, energy, purchase of equipment, etc. will be necessary?
· Will additional training be necessary?
· Will the changes we affect achieve our stated goals?
Take a long, hard look at the goals you are working on. Consider whether they are clear. Are the people working on accomplishing them clear on their mission towards accomplishment or are they floundering because they are trying to work through the fog of lazy definitions?