My friend and coach, Larry Linne, was in town recently. Larry spoke to a group of area employers about brand and reputation risk. We were fortunate enough to get him to spend a few hours with our sales team after the event.
One of the things about Larry that has always impressed me is his ability to successfully manage several consulting businesses, constant speaking engagements, professional writing and a geographically dispersed staff. The more I'm around him, the more I realize it's not by accident. Larry always has a plan. It's clear, focused, and measurable. And he sticks to it.
As always with Larry, it was an engaging and reflective time. I thought I'd share my notes from his presentation to our team on creating a Plan For Success:
- Your short-term objectives should tie into your long-term goals. Think about your personal and professional goals. They may even complement each other. The key is to be thinking and dreaming about what you want things to look like in the future.
- Reverse engineer each goal. You should break down what needs to be achieved in 20 years, 10 years, 5 years, and over the next 12 months.
- Now sort through the goals and only keep the ones you "have to". It's going to take great commitment to achieve the success you desire so it's important to place your focus on only the most important things.
- Review your goals frequently. Do they still resonate? Are they the right ones?
- Eliminate things that get in the way. This doesn't sound too bad on the surface, but Larry began to walk our group through a pretty ruthless process. You must categorize the action and events that take up your time. Work on systematically removing those things that get in the way.
- First get rid of things you "stink" at. Eliminate them.
- Next are the things you can do (but are just okay at or perhaps aren't totally necessary). Can you delegate these or stop doing them?
- Now think about the things you do very well. You probably even like these. But as you continue to evolve and you've handled the previous two, these will be next.
- You will be left with only those things you can and should be doing. They likely will play to your strengths and be things you enjoy. Imagine if you could spend your time just on these.
- Create clear action plans. Now that you know what you want to do and have prioritized and categorized it, you need to create clarity in your routine.
- Monitor your progress by setting measurable goals along the way.
- Hold yourself accountable. If you are unable to do this on your own, get someone to help - a coach, partner, spouse, or friend.
- Falling short isn't acceptable. With the careful work above, you have laid out a plan and process that you can in fact achieve. It should give you the confidence to know this can be done!
- Last, and perhaps the most important is to know your "Why?". Why are you chasing these dreams? What will it mean to you, your family, or company if you achieve them? When you know why you do it, you will be in the best position to remove distractions.
What’s The Risk?
The risk for all of us is that we aren't reaching our potential. It requires a plan. It requires a laser like focus on only those things that will help you achieve your goals. And most importantly, it requires knowing your "why". When you understand your why, you have the engine that will relentlessly drive the 10 action items above.
Too many of us cruise through life with the No Plan Plan. With admiration or envy we wonder why the achievements just don't come for us but always seem to happen to others around us. Often we miss by just a whisker. We talk about what could have been or how it almost happened. Most of the narratives we create include a cozy landing that removes our personal accountability for our lack of results.
For those that have achieved success along the way, I bet you will point to planning and execution as key drivers. So Larry's Top 10 list above likely resonates with you. But even for the planners, have you ruthlessly attacked your approach as Larry suggests in #5? You've had some achievements - Great! - but what opportunities have you missed? If you truly think about that, it's a little uncomfortable, isn't it?
Every item on this list looks easy, feels easy, and seems overly obvious. However, not very many people do all of these things and thus, they fall short of their goals. Think about purposefully incorporating all of these items into your 2014 plans, and see what happens!
