If you’ve seen the iconic poster of the bandanna-wearing Rosie the Riveter rolling up her sleeve and flexing her bicep, you are struck by the wording on the poster: “We can do it.”
That says it all — those four words are one of the simplest motivational sentences ever written.
The story has it that a photo of a Westinghouse factory worker was the inspiration for the poster. Contrary to the popular belief that the poster promoted women’s achievement, it was designed to boost the morale of women working in the munitions and material plants during World War II. History says it was displayed for a few weeks in 1943 and then forgotten until the 1980s when it reappeared as a feminism symbol.
In this month’s Uniquely Northern California, we highlight The Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California. The park was established in 2000 to tell the local and national story of all the Rosie the Riveters.
“We tell the local story, but we also really tell the national story of how that tremendous effort really affected society,” says Sue Fritzke, park spokesperson. “It affected our civil rights movement, the voting rights act and all sorts of things that happened in large part because of the huge numbers of people and the areas that were all working together to help the country.”
Once people are united with a common goal, amazing things can happen. And it can happen in business at any time, not just wartime.
Here are some tips from my collection on how to set goals:
- If you set too many goals, your team may pick and choose the most popular goals to work on and leave the rest.
- Write clear goals that define a specific time frame. Make them ambitious, but realistic.
- Level the playing field for those who successfully meet goals and those who don’t. There should be no consequences either way.
- Lean into the tough expectation, not away from it. You’ll likely save time figuring out how to reach the goal rather than in trying to diminish it.
- Make sure the goal is a solid and reachable idea. If it’s an exercise that is only a façade to convey progress, your people will know.
- Stress that it’s all or none. As one goal is reached, efforts to reach the others should continue. There’s no trading one completion to skip over another.
- Stay on task. People should commit to a goal and not spend an excessive amount of time planning and studying it instead.
Focusing on a goal and doing it well is much better than focusing on several goals and having mediocre results. That’s how the war was won.
