Do you need goals, plans or a strategy?

It’s the middle ages and Winter and the food has run out in your village.

A bunch of responsible folk get together to decide what to do.

You may hope that Spring will come early but, as we all know, hope is not a strategy.

The group decides that the best course of action is to go deer hunting. As you are stalking a deer you notice a rabbit that would be a much easier kill and would feed your family for a week. Killing the rabbit would spook the deer.

What do you do?

Phil Jones, author of “Communicating Strategy” used this story to open his presentation. If the goal is to feed the village and the plan is to do this by bringing home a deer carcase, the planning process will encompass all the elements of making this happen.

The plan is what we do to decide how to execute the strategy. Therefore, the plan itself isn’t important, but the process of planning makes carrying out the strategy easy.

Some people argue that if you have a vision that excites you enough, you don’t need goals, plans or strategies. This may be true of a single person pursuing their vision but there are lots of examples of small businesses taking on jobs to bring in immediate cash that distract them from the long term goals.

Whenever more than one person is involved the strategy and, more importantly, how that strategy is communicated becomes very important. The goal of the team, in this case, the village, may be at odds with the goal of the individual and could result in lots of rabbits being chased at the expense of the organisation as a whole.

For more information on communicating strategy see http://www.communicating-strategy.com/ or contact Phil Jones at http://www.excitant.co.uk

I’ve been verbed! At a recent meeting, a delegate told the gahering that he’d been
“Anned” (thank goodnes my name isn’t Roger ).  Becoming
a  verb isn’t something I set out to do but I’m not
complaining!

If the first action in achieving success is deciding what you want (your  major definite purpose and all consuming goal) and creating a plan to get it, this also involves ‘starting with the end in mind’.

Victoria Beckham famously said that she wanted to be “more famous than Persil” and she got her desire. Lots of people have become more famous than Persil but that was a side product of what they really wanted.

If you can’t decide on your major definite purpose or all consuming goal then starting with the end in mind may help.

Do you believe you can get what you want? If not, what are the thoughts that are holding you back? The first step to working on a lack of self belief or self confidence is to acknowledge that you have them. The good news is that self-confidence really can be learned and built on. All other things being equal, self-confidence is often the single ingredient that distinguishes a successful person from someone less successful.

Action Plans:
1. Decide on your definite major purpose or all consuming goal. What is the end result going to be?

2. Write down your goal and read it aloud twice a day. Imagine that you have already achieved it.

3. Do you believe you can get what you want? If not, find out what is stopping you and work on it.