Leading the way
Do you have a clear path to success to motivate yourself and your employees?
By Fred Koury
April 2008
How far are you on your
path to success?
You probably have a fundamental problem with your
business if you don’t have an
answer to that question.
If you don’t know where you
are going, then the people
under you are even more lost.
They are probably demotivated because they see no purpose in what they are doing.
Why work harder when you
don’t know for what you are
working harder?
Everyone has to have goals
or else there will be no
excitement and no sense of
purpose. NFL teams strive to
reach and win the Super
Bowl. Olympic athletes train
their whole lives to win the
gold medal. How motivated
would the athletes be if there
was no pinnacle of success?
The point of doing all the
hard work would be lost,
which is exactly what happens to people who work for
an organization with no clear-cut goals. Motivation comes
in many forms, but it starts
with a goal that everyone
understands.
The goal could be to be the
No. 1 player in your niche, or
it may be to sell your company to one of the biggest companies in the world, but the
important thing is that you
have a goal.
The Walt Disney Co. is one
of the most successful and
well-known organizations on
the planet. The company has
a goal of providing unparalleled entertainment, and
everything it does reflects
that, whether it is through its
theme parks, motion picture
studios, consumer products
or media networks. By keeping everyone at the broad-based company, which ranges from analysts at
ESPN to children’s book
publishers, focused on a single unifying goal, the company has been able to celebrate a lot of success.
Here are three ways to
make sure your company is
moving toward its goal.
- Set benchmarks. Along the
way to the goal you’ve established, there needs to be
benchmarks so you and everyone else in your organization
can see the progress you are
making. A football team might
first aim for a .500 record,
then a winning record, and
then to make the playoffs. You
need those same kinds of
benchmarks along your path
to success so the people who
work in your company can see
the progress toward the big
goal. Celebrate the wins along
the way, so everyone is aware
of the progress being made.
- Give people the right tools.
Setting a goal and benchmarks is just the first step.
You need to make sure your
people have the right tools to
get the job done. Be visible and talk to people to find out
where you need to offer
help. Not giving people the
help they need is like setting
a destination 100 miles away
and then telling them they
have to walk — while the
competition drives.
- Keep score. You not only
have to make sure people
know what the benchmarks
are, but you also have to
hold them accountable to
them. Each person needs to
understand how they contribute to the overall success
of the organization and have
his or her own goals that
link him- or herself to the
success of the organization.
If everyone’s goals are tied
to the company’s goals, then
a lot of little wins add up to
total victory.
The job of the CEO in this
process is to make sure the
goals are clearly articulated
throughout the company. If
you do that, everyone can
start heading in the same
direction. If you give everyone the tools they need to
reach the destination you’ve
set, then the only thing left
to do is get out of the way.
Competition is fierce in
today’s marketplace, so you
can’t afford to be an organization with no clear direction. A lack of goals will lead
to a lack of motivation not
just for your employees but
also for yourself. Make sure
you have a sense of purpose.
Do you know where your
company is going? And if
you don’t, who does?
FRED KOURY is president and CEO of Smart Business Network Inc. Reach him with your
comments at (800) 988-4726 or fkoury@sbnonline.com.
