Posts Tagged ‘achieving results’

We are coming to the end of another year. Like most of us, you probably started the year with some plans. Your plans might have been related to your work, career, business, family or some personal aspiration.

The chances are some things went according to plan, some spectacularly failed and some turned out okay but not quite how you anticipated. I know that, as I look back on the year, there were things I tried that failed in a big way.

For some, failing at all is devastating. For me it is all part of the process of achieving success. We all have our own definition of success. Some of the components that constitute success for me include:

• Having plenty of opportunity to contribute to the success of others.
• Being appropriately rewarded for the skills, experience and expertise I bring for those who work with me.
• Keeping a sense of balance between running a business and having the time to exercise and eat properly.
• Being able to grow, develop and take on new challenges.
• Being able to experiment and try things.

So as you think about planning for a new year, start by defining what success means for you. Taking this simple step will increase the chances of success and help you make the right choices.

So what do you hope to achieve in 2012?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people become great leaders and managers. Sign up for his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk.

Teams, as we know, have the potential to contribute significantly to organisational performance. On the other hand they often fail to deliver to optimal performance levels.

While there may be whole host of barriers to success, I have found that some of the real barriers include the following:

• A Lack Of Listening

  So often people say that the problem is a lack of communication. Yes, communication matters but what I have found is the real barrier is the inability to listen to each other. When we stop listening, we close our mind to insights and ideas that could make a big difference.

• The Know It All

  You might have met this person: the individual who has the answer to every possible challenge that the team could have or face. The trouble is, they tend to steam roll through their ideas and end up alienating people.

• Pessimism

  Achieving anything of significance is tough and let’s not pretend otherwise. At the same time, if you are overly pessimistic you never do anything because you worry as to if you are doing the right thing.

• Promising A Lot, Delivering Little

  The people who used to frustrate me were the people who promised to do a lot of things but just let the team down time and time again. If you are the leader, you need to hold these individuals to account.

• A Lack Of Trust

  Trust takes time to build and can be destroyed in minutes. Delivering what you say and going out of your way to help others builds and maintains trust.

I would love to hear your experiences of what gets in the way of team success and, if you have a moment, I invite you to leave a comment.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

Anyone who makes it to the role of the leader is good at what they do. At the same time, not everyone stands out as a leader.

So I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts and invite your thoughts on what it takes to stand out as a leader.

1. Focus on delivering results rather than personal survival
2. Learn to recognise when to step in and when to step back
3. Take responsibility for the results that are and are not achieved
4. Support your people publicly when things don’t go to plan
5. Encourage and support others to achieve what they want from their career
6. Avoid blaming others or circumstances when things are not going well
7. Be consistent in the way that you deal with people
8. Be an expert listener, not just an expert communicator
9. Make the most of the time that you have available
10. Make your expectations clear
11. Be a role model for the behaviours you expect from others
12. Give feedback promptly and regularly
13. Seek regular feedback on your own performance
14. Learn from your mistakes and move on
15. Take decisions and action even when you don’t have all the information you would like
16. Balance the here and now with the longer term
17. Anticipate barriers and obstacles and plan for responding to them
18. Don’t ask others to do what you won’t do yourself
19. Keep yourself up to date
20. Be professional and act with integrity.

The reality is that standing out as a leader is not just about skills and knowledge.  Great qualities are also a huge contributor.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

As a leader your goal is to deliver results. So what might be stopping you getting results?

Circumstances always exist; it’s a fact of life.

What I have noticed is that managers sometimes fall into the trap of complaining about the circumstances.

While it might be tempting and make you feel good in the short term, does it really achieve anything long term?

As a manager, you are employed to deliver results. Achieving results requires you to take decisions and then act on those decisions.

So where are you focusing your attention as a manager? On complaining about the circumstances or on taking actions to achieve results?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

You want to be a successful leader or manager, right?

Of course you do but, despite this, it is surprising just how many people stop themselves from being successful.

So how can you start achieving more success?

Start taking DECISIONS (the ‘D’ in DAR)

We all have lots of choices available to us. Choices are great but it is decisions that get things moving. So if you want to get more success, start taking DECISIONS.

ACT on decisions

Decisions are great and can be hugely invigorating and motivating but the key thing you must do is take ACTION. It is the actions which move you forward, provide the channel for feedback on what is and what is not working. Make a habit of taking ACTION on DECISIONS if you want more success.

REMEMBER: DECISIONS + ACTIONS = RESULTS

RESULTS don’t happen by chance. They are a direct consequence of the decisions and actions you take. If you don’t stop using temporary staff for example, your outlay on salary costs is never going to change. Similarly, if you have a great idea for a product but never take it to the launch stage, you are never going to generate revenues.

The Bottom Line

If you are struggling to deliver as a leader or manager, take time out to review whether you are really taking decisions and then acting on decisions. You might be surprised what a difference simple changes can make.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are reading this blog post, I am guessing that you know that you need to keep growing but are short on time. To help you, here are 6 ways to develop in 6 weeks to get better results.

Week 1: Take stock

Before you can start to improve anything, you need to be clear on where you are right now. So take 5 minutes each day to reflect on the following 3 questions:

• What do you do well?
• What could you do better?
• What do you need to develop most?

Week 2: Get feedback

If you completed Week 1, you should have your own self-assessment to hand. This week, find 10 people and ask them to give you feedback on the following questions:

• What do you do well?
• What could you do better?
• What do you need to develop most?

Week 3: Do a time audit

Almost without exception, people tell me they struggle to get things done. So to move forward you need to do your own personal time audit so that you can see where you invest your time. Do this for each hour of your working day for the next week.

Week 4: Get clarity on your key results

What does your boss judge your success on? If you think you know, check it out with your boss. If you don’t know, ask your boss.

Week 5: Develop your change plan

By now, you probably know what needs developing, have clarity on your priorities and know whether your time is being invested on your priorities. Use this to develop a plan of what changes you need to make and when.

Week 6+: Implement plan, reflect, refine

Start implementing your change plan, reflect on what is working, what needs tweaking and adjusting and what you need to stop doing.

Truth is, the secret to getting better results is to get insight, make change and keep refining until you get more of the results that you want.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Set a few key goals

 

Like to do lists we are all tempted to come up with a long list of goals.  But remember that achieving a goal requires investment of time, energy, effort and maybe money.  In a 52 week year you can only achieve so much, so choose wisely when it comes to goals.

 

List all of the things you need to do to achieve your goals

 

The goal is the outcome you want, for example, get promoted, complete a professional qualification, deliver a major business project to time and budget to name just a few. 

 

Achievement of the goal or outcome requires you to do many things.  Let’s illustrate this by looking at getting promoted.  You might need to:

 

 

• Do some form assessment of your strengths and weaknesses
• Start searching for opportunities
• Update your CV
• Get some feedback
• Work on a personal development plan
• Take some training

 

As you can see the list can become very large very quickly hence the suggestion that you focus on a few key goals.

 

Measure your progress regularly

 

Ever heard the phrase what gets measured gets done?  When you start actively tracking progress you will be amazed at the progress you make.

 

Set up some accountability

 

There is something really powerful about having to report back on your progress to someone else.  Some view it as a negative thing but it definitely does not need to be.  Simply let someone know what you plan to do and get them to ask you for a regular update in the progress you are making.

 

 

 

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers.  For more information click here

Are you achieving all that you want at the moment?  If you are keep up the good work, notice what you are doing right and do more of it.  In reality there will always be times when everything is going well and other times when it feels like everything you touch falls apart.

There are a whole host of reasons why you might not be achieving all you want right now.  Let’s explore some of these:

Fear: You might not be taking action right now because you are frightened of failing or frightened of the consequences if you succeed.  People do worry that they might be too successful, become overwhelmed and then not deliver.

Lack of focus: Often when working with clients they complain that they are not making progress.  When we dig below the surface we often discover that they are not completely focused.  They might not be getting signed up for courses essential to their continued development, getting their CV completed or asking to get on a particular project that will given that essential experience to their success.

Lack of desire:  To achieve anything you need to have the desire and hunger to get the benefits that success will bring.  You might not be motivated because you are playing safe and operating in your comfort zone and taking what might be regarded as a logical next step.

Lack of commitment: Do you find yourself starting lots of new things but never see things through to completion?  Sometimes it takes a lot of commitment to achieve things so ask yourself if you are willing to do the work to achieve.

Lack of skills, knowledge or other resources:  Maybe you are clear on what you want but tell yourself that you cannot do it because you don’t have the right skills, knowledge or other resources to do it.

Lack of clarity: We can often lack clarity on what you want.  If you don’t know where you are heading, it is difficult to plot out your route to success.

If any or all of these reasons apply to you, what can you do to start achieving?

1. Clearly define what you want, why you want it and what the benefits will be once you achieved it.

2. Start one big project at a time, plan it thoroughly and follow through step by step.

3. Drop things that you don’t really want to do but feel you need to do it because it is expected.

4. Start consciously choosing what you will and won’t do rather than leaving it to chance.

5. Accept that when you take action you will fail some time but by stretching your comfort zone you will achieve more than you would have done otherwise.

6. Recognise that it is better to have something that is 90% complete now than 92% complete in 3 month’s time.

Bottom line – If you want to achieve anything, the first obstacle you need to address is yourself.  So what’s your first step to achieving more success?

How often, when you ask someone what they want, they proceed to tell you what they don’t want.  I have been noticing this response more and more recently.  Knowing what you want professionally and personally is essential, no matter whether you are a small business, a major corporation or a manager of a small team. 

Imagine you stepped into a cab and the driver asked you where you wanted to go.  Would you reply, I don’t know, you choose?  Of course you would not.   So why do so many people adopt this approach to area like business, career, relationships, health, fitness and personal growth.  Setting a clear direction has a number of benefits:

• Gets you connected to your bigger vision of what you want to achieve and the impact that you want to have

• Acts as a reference point to support your decision making on a day to day basis.  Simply asking yourself the question, is this moving me closer to or further away from what I want will help you to target your energies

• Keeps you motivated when times are tough

So how can you start the process of setting a clear direction?

Establish Where You Are Now

Finding out where you are now is a vital first step.  You need to consider questions like:

• What’s working?

• What’s not working?

• What’s motivating?

• What’s de-motivating?

• What strategies are you deploying?

• Where are your strategies taking you?

This process can be done for you as an individual, as a team or even for a business as a whole.

Where Would You Like To Be?

Once you have got some clarity on where you are right now and the direction it is taking you in, you can start to create a vision of where you would like to be.  In creating a vision, some of the common problems we run into include:

• Aiming too low and not making it compelling enough

• Overly worrying about how we are going to do it

• Producing something that is out of line with our values

When starting on your vision, it is worth thinking about:

• What you want to create

• Why you want to create it

• What it will give you when you have achieved or partly achieved it

• How you will feel if you don’t start or don’t achieve

In our vision, it is all too easy to focus on things like:

• Financial benefits

• Status

• Materialistic things

While these are important, don’t forget about things like lifestyle.  For example, do you want lots of money and a life that consists of 80 hours a week of work, 56 for sleep and 34 for everything else?  There is no right or wrong, but consciously choosing is incredibly powerful.

Selecting Tactics

The tactics are those things that you will do to make your vision a reality.  In a business context they might include things like:

• Training and developing staff

• Raising finance

• Marketing

• Selling

• Developing technology

In a career context it might be things like:

• Taking a secondment, maybe overseas

• Working on developing a particular skill or attribute

• Self appraisal and feedback from others

• Researching related roles or even completely different roles

Choosing tactics gets you into action and action gets results.

Monitor and Adjust

Even when you have established where you are, where you want to get to and chosen your tactics, chances are that things will not always go quite as you expected. It is essential that you have a mechanism for:

• Monitoring your progress

• Adjusting and taking corrective action

At the end of the day, setting direction and achieving results is a relatively simple process.  The question is are you ready to make it happen?