Tag Archives: goals

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How To Get Powerful Business Results

If I had to pick one activity, habit or tool that would be the most significant thing a business could implement to get powerful business results, I would say it would be the habit of goals. And, by “habit of goals”, I am not referring to the habit of setting goals.

I am talking about the habit of setting powerful, focused goals and implementing a system to monitor the progress and deliver on these goals.

This is why I use one page tools like the Strategy Summary to clearly define where my business is going and to measure progress against these targets. I have seen businesses and non-profits alike make stunning progress in their market space simply by focusing their leadership and their staff on their most important objectives and reinforcing these priorities each and every day.

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Smart Thinking

Three Essential Keys to Solve Problems, Innovate, and Get Things Done

This week’s book review is Smart Thinking by Art Markman, PHD.

Smart Thinking explores three essential keys to solving problems, innovating and getting things done. Basically, Smart Thinking requires developing Smart Habits to acquire High Quality Knowledge and to apply your knowledge to achieve your goals. A Smart Habit is the repetition of a desired behavior until it becomes an engrained habit. High Quality Knowledge is accurate and tested knowledge without gaps or inaccuracies.

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Why Business Dynasties Fail and How to Avoid It

What causes a highly successful business, that outperforms the stock market by 6.9 times for over a decade, to all of a sudden become irrelevant and fail?

Jim Collins’ book, “How the Mighty Fall” takes a detailed look at companies that were great companies as defined by Collins’ previous book “Good to Great” but fell to irrelevance. Collins defines a great company as one that had to significantly outperform the market for at least 15 years in a row. On average, the companies that Collins studied as great companies outperformed the general stock market by at least 6.9 times.

. . . And then, they failed!

There were quite a list of companies that were studied for this book but some of the more dramatic failures include:

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How to Get Employees to Crush Your Business Goals!

How many times have you seen corporate goals or objectives rolled out to an organization in a company-wide meeting? At first, the employees are all fired up, they clap exuberantly, and then they forget about them within 24 hours!

In another situation, the goals are presented in a vaguely worded poster attached to a company wide email. The employees speed read the email and promptly “file” it to the deleted bin . . . along with any memory of the goals.

Not setting business goals properly is a big mistake that renders them almost useless! Furthermore, when you do not properly communicate them, no matter how well you define them, they are doomed to failure!

I have seen this quite a few times over my career . . . The corporate poster gets rolled out with tons of flashy graphics, bullet points and 9-point font. It is an amazing work of art but there is no organizational buy-in and no accountability. In fact, the goals are usually “dumbed” down so that they look and sound good on the poster but they really mean nothing.

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How to Decrease Costs, Drive Growth, and Increase Profits

As most years do, 2016 seemed to come and go rather quickly! It is probably safe to say that 2016 was filled with a lot more challenges than usual for many people . . . especially those who rely on the oil and gas market for their livelihood. Many people lost their jobs and many businesses were shuttered.

However, many business also thrived and grew in 2016. It’s not that these businesses were immune from the downturn but rather were nimble, efficient, and able to adjust and change their focus to find new markets for their products and services.