Clarity

"In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it."
-- Robert Heinlein, American Novelist

Clarity. Without it, we are asking ourselves, our employees and our businesses to guess what we should be working on and where the hell we are going. If I walked around your business and asked employees "where are we going?", "what are our goals?", "what are you working on to help us achieve them?", "who is our ideal customer?", and "what's in it for you?", would I get the same or even remotely similar answers?

The leader needs to set the vision and goals for the business and communicate them on a regular basis and track how we are doing against the goals as we go along.

Steven Covey did a study and showed only about 20% of employees could answer these questions. I compare that to a 5-year-old soccer team. Have you seen one lately? 2 out of 11 even know which goal is there own, 2 know what they are supposed to do to score or even know if they are allowed by the coach to do so.

"Goals without actions are dreams, Actions without goals is chaos."
-- Japanese Proverb

Key Actions flow easily once goals are set, but more on that next time. Here is a really good 8 minute video by Success Magazine's Darren Hardy. It's a must see.

All the best,
Rick W. Wallace