How To Make Your Business Goals “Stick”
Dan and Chip Heath, authors of “Made to Stick” wrote another insightful article in Fast Company this month.
They explained the difference between goals and resolutions.
What really jumped out at me though, was being reminded of the fact that our goals have much more weight, impact, and resolve when we add a higher level of accountability to them.
Making a clear goal and personally committing to it is good. Making a clear goal, personally committing to it…and sharing it with others takes it to a whole new level.
In the article I mentioned, the Heaths observed, “At Microsoft, for instance, employees set ambitious goals for themselves each year, called ‘commitments,’ that are created in consultation with their peers and supervisors and later made public. Peer pressure, or even just peer awareness, is a powerful motivating factor.”
I’m writing this post today for a reason. It’s January 24th. Exactly 24 days since the dawn of our new year when millions of people set new, ambitious goals for themselves. Now, 24 days later, millions of people have already lost their resolve and those great, daring, worthy goals are being dropped faster than they were conceived.
Are you one of them? Already bailing out on New Years Goals?
I’d challenge you to stick it out and establish a new level of resolve by creating more accountability for the great goals you’ve set.
You can do that by telling peers, friends, and family what you’ve decided to accomplish, and what your goals are. It’s interesting how much harder it is to quit a goal that others are excited to see you accomplish.
Check out these great blog posts for more information about this topic:
Six Steps to Keep your New Year’s Resolution
Tags: Business, chip heath, dan heath, Entrepreneurship, goals, made to stick
January 28th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Goals can be big and small. Before setting goals, I think it is important to identify personal dream. Dream can be achievable and non-achievable. But it gives us direction to where we want our life to head.
Goals are just to fulfill the dreams. Goals are achievable and something like a station or stop in the journey of dream.
In Microsoft, they have a dream and vision. That’s the ultimate purpose of the company. And they form small goals and big goals to fulfill that vision and align to that dream.
Alex Liu
How To Become A Millionaire
http://secretsofunlimitedwealth.com
February 4th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I completely agree with the idea of setting goals. I would actually take it a step further and say you should write down your goals.
There was a Harvard study conducted between 1979 - 1989. In 1979, the graduates of the MBA program at Harvard we asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” It turned out that only 3 percent of the graduates had written goals and plans. 13 percent had goals but they were not put down in writing. The other 84 percent had no specific goals at all, aside from getting out of school and enjoying the summer.
Ten years later in 1989, the members were interviewed again. Researchers found the 13 percent who had goals but had not written them down were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. Even more surprisingly, they found that the 3 percent of graduates that had clear cut written goals, when they left Harvard, were earning on average 10 TIMES as much as the other 97 percent.
Clarity is key in goal setting.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Great article and so true! This year was the first year I made a New Year’s Resolution and I was just about to give up on it…your article inspired me to keep going. Thanks for a great blog.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
That is very true. Many people have goals, but no accountability. When we have people who are on the same page as we are it is a great motivator. As much as we dont want to let ourself down, we really dont want to let anyone else down, and even more we dont want people to know that we didnt accomplish a goal we set out to do.