Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: goals

  • Question of the Week

    What specifically are you intending to accomplish over the next thirty days?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Question of the Week

    Which option would encourage and empower more and better people to increase their involvement in accomplishing your goal?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Why Would I Trust You With My Future?

    We are asserting that your firm’s success might be deeply connected to the success of your individual team members. (Be sure to catch up on the entire series Influencing Others.)

    Imagine how much more committed to the company’s goals employees would be if they believed you were committed to helping them achieve their career goals. They’d go all-out for you.

    Let’s say you rewrote your job description to include a responsibility to help your key players reach their professional goals whether or not those goals involved staying in your employ. What a great leader you’d be, right?! You wouldn’t know what to do with all the loyalty and energy and dedication that would result.

    BUT

    And this is a big but.

    It’s not really safe to tell you
    my professional aspirations, is it?

    If you knew I was working my way toward a transfer to another department, a credential for another field, a transition to another part of the country, or a promotion that would complicate your own plans, would you really choose to use that knowledge for my benefit? Or would your commitment to yourself and the firm take over and ultimately use the information against me?

    Even if you could resist the temptation, is there any reason for me to trust you? After all, you have the power in the relationship. The risk of revealing my career aspirations is entirely mine.

    Think about it.

    What could you do to build trust and create a safe environment for everyone to celebrate and support each others’ career trajectories regardless whether they involve each other?

    Wouldn’t three to five years of over-the-top engagement be better than ten to fifteen years of squeezing out the-bare-minimum?

  • Question of the Week

    How well can each person on your team articulate how her or his work contributes to achieving the company goals?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Listen In -> Strategic Planning #2: Shaping the Future

    In these fast changing times, is planning worth the effort? Won’t the world be completely different before we get very far along toward our long range goals?

    In this week’s podcast conversation, Claudia and I look at strategic planning as a tension between control and change. No we don’t have the control leaders used to enjoy when the pace of change was slower. But neither are we at the whim of the forces around us.

    We’re excited because the opportunity to show up and make a difference is huge. Are you excited about your planning efforts?

    Listen in.

    powered by ODEOODEO

  • Do Your Goals Haunt or Lure?

    Do your goals haunt or lure?

    It’s the difference between having your goals behind you or in front of you.

    Behind you, the best goals can do is accuse you. They can goad you with fear or haunt like some guilting ghoul. From behind you, your goals will send one message, “You are still not there yet. What is your problem?”

    In front of you, goals can serve as an alluring tempter or temptress. They will draw you toward an extremely attractive future. Out in front, your goals will send a message of motivation, “What you want is over here. Achieve and live it. It’s worth the effort.”

    And so back to the original question. Do your goals haunt or lure?

    I believe the distinction lies within two questions. 1) Have you owned each goal as your own? And, 2) Do you interpret missteps as damning failures or learning opportunities?

    For example: What goals were set in your last performance review? Who initiated them, you or your supervisor? If your supervisor, have you made them your own yet? If not, then I’ll bet you’ll feel like the goals are haunting you all year. “Are you there yet?” “Your raise depends on this.” “Don’t mess up now.”

    On the other hand, if you’ve owned the goals as your own, then your motivation comes from within instead of outside of yourself. You want; therefore you work. The achievement is associated with a positive desire (hence “lure”) instead of a negative judgment (aka fear.)

    Regarding the inevitable missteps along the way, if every one feels like a failure to you, then your road to goal achievement is primarily an experience of obstacles and setbacks. Your spirit gets progressively beaten down instead of nourished and energized as it would if you felt you were learning and improving along the way.

    And so we need to deliberately choose to view our errors as gifts. Gifts we open with gratitude and from which we choose to benefit. Benefit by learning: becoming wiser, more skilled and more committed to playing at the top of our professional game.

    For today it is enough to simply pause and reflect on the initial question: Do your goals haunt or lure?

    On your side,

    – Karl

  • Question of the Week

    How often do you set aside time to evaluate how effectively your office culture is serving your business goals?

  • Resource Find! Concrete Goals Tracker

    Concrete Goals TrackerCheck out this Concrete Goals Tracker. David Seah has put together an easy-to-use tool for prioritizing and encouraging progress on the tasks most important to you.

    We’re always looking for ways to move away from overwhelmed busyness and move toward satisfying effectiveness. (Without, of course, needing to be divine first.) I like his priority categories for weighting the value of the various outcomes of our efforts.

    Here is a simple tool I am going to try right away. I thought you’d like to know.

    On your side,

    – Karl

  • Christmas Eve Leadership Lesson

    It was the night before Christmas, when all through the house
    Not a creature was stirring, except that I was lying awake thinking about my unmet goals for the year.

    Tomorrow morning, the kids will revel in the gifts and delights of the a holiday key to our family’s faith. I will muster my focus to participate fully and set aside the concerns that I did not accomplish all I set out to in 2007.

    What does the coming of the Christ Child represent if not the abrupt intrusion of the unexpected gift we need most?  We learn that we are not alone and because we are not alone there is always hope.

    And so, I do not beat myself up over missed targets. I learn. I get help. I look forward. I keep moving forward.

    There is always a way forward. Even if it is not the path I had originally planned.  I adjust. I try again. I stay in the game.

    I find my energies and efforts renewed by knowing that I am not alone and that there is always hope.

    I think I will have no problem being fully present with my family tomorrow morning. I hope you will learn from your 2007 as well, so we can all show up for a more vital 2008.

    Merry Christmas.