How to use them correctly in business. successful leadership strategies: how to set goals and achieve them

For the New Year, Vasily set his main business goals. From January 1st, cover the market on all continents, use the money received to buy a controlling stake in Apple and withdraw the new kind horses with a horn on their forehead. Vasily is not good at goal setting, but he is not alone in this. We have collected typical mistakes businessmen when setting goals so that you do not repeat them.

How you don’t need to set goals: the experience of large companies

Goals threaten the future

If you focus only on achieving short-term goals - for example, a sales target - you risk leading the company to a dead end. This can be done in different ways:

● postpone investments in development for the future;
● offer the client that a transaction planned for the future takes place now;
● thoughtlessly invest in expensive promotion;
● not thinking through a long-term development strategy.

This was the case, for example, in IBM. During years when the company showed very slow growth, management continued to set plans to increase sales by 25-30%. Against the background of frozen budgets for the development of IT projects, such goals could not inspire the team. After the disastrous year of 1993, when the company showed a loss of $8 billion, top management decided to completely abandon the profile of an IT company and focus on providing consulting services.

Inscription on the board: “I will not fight the future”
Source: giphy.com

Nobody likes the goal

If the goal has a negative formulation in the spirit of “reduce sales risks,” “limit the number of smoking breaks,” or “punish for being late,” then it’s hardly worth waiting for development.

Such attitudes entail a chain of prohibitions, which only clips the workers’ wings: they will stop showing initiative (what if they “mess up” again?). Goals should have positive expression, for example, “Increase market share to 17% by 2020,” this will give the company a vision to strive for.

The goal is fabulous

Separation from reality - common mistake businessmen. So, at software company Siebel, the management set everyone regional offices the same revenue plan - $3.5 million per quarter. The population of the entrusted regions was not taken into account, economic situation, level of competition in the local market. As a result, managers in less profitable states were constantly being fired.

Goals to tick

“Goals for the month: keep sales at the level of last month and train a new employee in the sales department” - such goals don’t cost anything to achieve, because this is just a list of routine tasks. Goal setting for the sake of goal setting only gives you a nice tick in a notebook, and it does not move you towards real results. So it’s better to set goals that really require effort to achieve.

Inconsistent goals

Sometimes even your own negative experience doesn't teach anything. An example of this is the media conglomerate AOL. In 1998, he acquired ICQ for $400 million, but the promising service did not live up to expectations, and in the end it was resold, but for $187 million. AOL did not take into account the experience of failure and bought the Bebo social network for $850 million. The BBC later called this deal one of the worst in the history of the Internet - two years later the company sold the service for just $10 million.

Unsuccessful deals forced the conglomerate to close other projects: Xdrive, AOL Pictures, BlueString, AOL Journal and AOL Hometown, since the company no longer had money left to maintain them.

There are goals, but no means

Perhaps the most clear example in our selection - the history of a promising Russian project Marussia sports car, which was never implemented. The creators planned to sell 10 thousand sports cars of this brand in 2014 - that is, the deadlines were set, the goal was specific, measurable, significant (Marussia was supposed to be an excellent quality sports car in a vintage style).

CRM system as a goal setting tool

Not an archaic notepad, but specially designed programs will help you set goals for the entire company and individual employees and track their implementation. For example, with which you can:

• each employee should set his own goal and success indicators (some have sales indicators, some have the number of calls and applications);
• introduce a system of ratings and rewards: the most successful employees will be at the top of the overall rating, which will encourage healthy mind rivalry;
• predict future profits and adjust plans based on this;
• control the work of employees: who copes with assigned tasks and how. This is especially true if employees work remotely.

And even if the CRM system does not formulate goals for you, but with its help you will be able to control their achievement. Find out more about working with and on our website.

A goal differs from a dream in that it has not only an image, but also real ways to achieve it. Without the means and concrete actions that make approaching the goal possible, one can only dream and fantasize.

A goal is an ideal, mental anticipation of the result of a person’s actions and the ways to achieve it using certain means.

In other words, a goal is a possible, imaginable future event or state of something, the implementation of which is desirable for a person (personal image of the future). At the same time, the means and possible paths necessary to achieve it are always consistent with the goal.

Otherwise, this desired future will only be a spell of the elements (lack of possible means) or fruitless dreams (lack of ways to achieve it). Thus, a goal is always something for which specific human actions are carried out. No actions, no goals. And vice versa.

How to set goals correctly

The fulfillment of our desires and the realization of our dreams largely depends on how correctly we set our goals. Rules for setting goals help turn our aspirations and desires into reality. Therefore, in this article we will consider in detail the question “How to set goals correctly?”, and we will understand how to translate your desires and dreams into the category of real and clear goals that can be achieved.

1. Rely only on your own strengths

Before you set a goal, make it clear to yourself that all responsibility for its implementation falls entirely on your shoulders. To avoid the temptation to blame someone else for your failures, set goals that you can achieve without outside help. This goal-setting rule will save you in the future (if you don’t achieve something) from making the wrong conclusions when working on mistakes.

2. Formulate your goals correctly

Firstly, goals, like ideas, must be written down on paper (notebook, diary, diary). A goal written down in detail has a much greater chance of being realized. If you believe that you can keep them in your head without formulating goals on paper, then do not flatter yourself about achieving them. Such goals can safely be classified as dreams. Dreams and desires wander chaotically in our heads, they are chaotic, disorderly and completely unclear to us.

The efficiency of such dream goals is extremely small; in reality, they are achieved very, very rarely. Even with words, we often cannot describe what we really want. Therefore, formulating a goal must necessarily take place with a pencil in hand. The saying is true: “What is written with a pen cannot be cut down with an axe.”

Setting and formulating a goal using writing includes active work our subconscious, a formulated goal gives confidence and makes everyone next step meaningful.

Caught by a man goldfish. And she says to him: “Let me go, I will fulfill any of your wishes.” Well, he thought and thought about how to fit everything into one desire and said: “I want me to have everything!” “Okay,” the fish answers, “you HAD everything.”

Secondly, correct goal setting and formulation imply that the goal must carry a positive charge. Therefore, it is better to formulate it using the rules of affirmations - talk about what you want, and not about what you don’t want. The right goal- “to be rich”, “to be sober”, “to be slim”. The wrong goal is “to avoid poverty,” “not to drink,” “to get rid of excess weight.” If nothing positive comes to mind and something like “I don’t want this, I don’t want that” is constantly spinning around, try asking correctly: “This is what I don’t want. Then what do I want instead?

Also, following this rule of setting a goal, when formulating it, it is better not to use words that create resistance and reduce the effectiveness of the goal - “necessary”, “needed”, “should”, “must”. These words are the antipodes of the word “want”. How can you want, using blocking words to motivate? Therefore, replace “must” with “want”, “should” with “can”, “should” with “will do”.

The correct goal is “I want to relax and will go on vacation”, “I can and know how to earn money and will earn a lot of money.” Wrong goal - “I need to relax and go on vacation”, “In order to pay off the debt I must earn money.” It is also best to formulate a goal in terms of a result rather than a process: that is, “do this” rather than “work better.”

3. Break big goals into subgoals

Any big goal It seems overwhelming until you begin to divide it into parts. For example, the desire to buy real estate abroad seems impossible at first glance. But if you move towards your goal in systematic steps, dividing it into stages, it will be easier to achieve it.

You can first set a goal to earn 3 thousand rubles a day, then 5 thousand, etc. Step by step (goal by goal) you will reach a level where you can think about buying real estate. Setting complex (global) goals and objectives, breaking them down into smaller ones, has an excellent motivational effect. Having achieved one, albeit insignificant, goal, you will feel satisfaction and the desire to move on. Reaching near goals, you gain strength and confidence to reach distant ones.

The way of thinking will gradually change. Understand, it is unrealistic to earn 20 thousand a month, and then in a few weeks increase your income to 500 thousand. Big money loves the prepared.

4. Specification of the goal

Often the reason why a set goal is not achieved is its lack of specificity, namely:

• Lack of clearly formulated specific results. What does it mean - “I want to learn” Chinese“- learn a couple of hundred words or does it mean learning to communicate fluently in this language, or maybe “learning Chinese” means learning all 80 thousand characters and reading the text without a dictionary?
• There is no way to measure this result. When setting goals and objectives, it is important to consider the further ability to measure the result. For example, if you want to reset excess weight, then you should know how much weight you want to lose, five, ten or maybe thirty kilograms.
• Lack of clearly defined deadlines. Here are two examples of goal setting: the first is “I want to increase the traffic to my website to a thousand unique visitors per day,” the second is “I want to increase the traffic to my website to a thousand unique visitors per day in three months.” The first option, without clearly defined deadlines, looks more like a desire than a goal. Well, a person wants to increase traffic to his resource, so what? He can come to this only in five years. Another thing is the second option - there is fixed time, which will stimulate and encourage in every possible way. Surely the deadline was determined reasonably, and not taken out of thin air, and therefore you will have to forget about laziness and work productively.

More, more specifics!

5. Goal adjustment

Be flexible! Just because you've set a goal doesn't mean you can't make adjustments as necessary. Anything can happen, circumstances may arise that can slow down or speed up the achievement of the goal, so you need to be prepared to adjust the goal. Remember that inertia in aspirations has never made anyone either successful or happy man. Life changes, and you must have time to change with it!

6. Attractiveness of the goal

The goal and the consequences that its achievement will lead to should attract you! choose goals that attract, inspire and inspire you, otherwise “the game is not worth the candle.”

7. Believe that your goal is achievable

After formulating and setting a specific goal, you need to penetrate it and consolidate it in the subconscious. It happens that while consciously trying to achieve a goal, we are subconsciously not ready to achieve it. You can desire a goal, but deep down in your soul you don’t believe in its feasibility, you don’t believe in your abilities, or you simply consider yourself unworthy.

It is not enough to correctly formulate a goal, you need to charge it with the energy of confidence - this is the most important condition for readiness to achieve your goal. All successful people, from television stars (Oprah Winfrey, Larry King...) and outstanding athletes (Michael Jordan, Fedor Emelianenko...), to politicians (Mitt Romney, Silvio Berlusconi, Arnold Schwarzenegger...) and businessmen (Richard Branson,...) have achieved what they have thanks to the ability to correctly formulate and set goals.

8. Adjustment of goals and objectives

If you have already identified your main life goals, this does not mean that you cannot partially change them over time. Adjustments to goals and objectives can take place at every stage of your life path. Flexibility nowadays is the most important quality allowing you to adapt to changing conditions. It must be remembered that rigid views have never led anyone to success or happiness. You must change along with the world around you.

At least once a year, every person determined to succeed should devote time to such an activity as goal adjustment. For example, you can do this every birthday because it is the moment when you grow one year older and realize that you are wiser. Dedicate this day to analyzing the fruits that you managed to collect over the previous year.

Focus on your victories and don't forget to praise yourself for them. At the same time, you should not lose sight of your defeats. Draw the most correct conclusions and think about what you have to work on in the coming period. Be sure to evaluate the list of goals that was compiled a year ago. Carefully analyze each of the assigned tasks. Think about what exactly you did during the year to implement it.

Assess how far you have come in your pursuits. Ask yourself whether a specific goal has the same meaning for you as it did a year ago. Perhaps today this task will seem insignificant to you or, in some respects, even naive. In such a situation, you can safely cross it out.

Once you've gone through all your goals, start creating a new list. You can modify old tasks, focusing on the requirements of the present moment. If you have new thoughts about your goals, be sure to record them. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that new tasks do not contradict the old ones that are still relevant. We must remember that our capabilities must be assessed adequately. Try to set achievable goals for yourself, since unrealistic tasks that are almost impossible to achieve at this stage will become the subject of your disappointment in a year.

If your life has changed significantly over the past year, adjusting your tasks is almost mandatory for you. There is no need to set too strict time limits for yourself. You don't have to wait a year to adjust your goals. Forming new life priorities, you will have the opportunity to understand and accept all the changes that have happened in your life.

Most likely, you have many goals. Try to write them down briefly and clearly on a piece of paper. Most likely, you won’t be able to do this quickly the first time, and the results of such work may surprise you. It wouldn’t hurt to compare the old and new lists in order to understand what you’ve given up and where you’re heading.

Remember that you have the opportunity to change both the goals themselves and the methods for achieving them. For example, the past strategy for achieving specific purpose V currently may seem like universal stupidity to you. Make changes in your life, otherwise there is a risk that you will remain in the same place for a long time.

2018 is almost here, and The best way To meet it - think through your goals in advance and immediately begin to implement them. Selected useful tips from our books that will help you correctly formulate goals for 2018 and successfully implement your plans.

Understand the importance

Understand why it is so important to have goals in life. If you are going to change something, you must understand why it is important to you. I want to have goals because I want to know where I'm going; I want to go there; I want my life to be filled with meaning; I want to do something every day that brings me closer to cherished result, to what I want to be when I grow up.

State your goal

Take the time to properly formulate your goal. Find people you can work with. It is desirable that they can support you, so that you feel responsible to them, and your goal influences their life. In most cases, you should break down the goal into smaller tasks. Even if a goal is achievable, sometimes it may be too big or difficult to achieve with a single effort.

The right goal should be very cool and give a boost of happiness.

A goal only becomes effective when it touches your feelings. She is unambiguous and unshakable. Something clicks in your brain and your entire daily decision-making process changes. And it is these daily decisions that determine everything. Success is hidden in the seemingly trivial and unremarkable details that actually determine who will be the winner, who will be able to reach their full potential and who will not.

Set a deadline

Recently I realized that when we say “someday” it is the same as saying “never”, just not in such a categorical form. If you put something off until “someday,” chances are you will never do it.

Never ever.

The goal must have a time frame. There’s absolutely no way without this. If you do not set yourself a deadline to achieve a goal, then the goal will “never” be achieved.

Use your time effectively

Habits. Think about whether your habits are working for you or against you? Should anything be changed in them? Is there something you do every day that you could do better, more correctly, or more efficiently? For example, if you stop buying fast food and start eating healthy at home, your health and well-being will improve. This means that instead of the usual turn to the diner on the way home from work, you will stop at the grocery store.

To-do lists. Write a list of your daily tasks so you don't forget or do anything in last minute. If you can complete them in advance using this list, you will learn to better manage your time.

Developing healthy and effective habits and using to-do lists are great skills for maintaining life and time management, but your calendar is the tool you will use to stop just maintaining life and start moving it forward.

Evaluate and reevaluate

Keeping a goal in mind at all times is quite difficult. In addition, if you don’t specifically focus on this, then in the abyss of urgent matters there is simply no time left for the most important things. Remember how often it happens that you seem to have been busy all day, but haven’t taken a single step towards your goal?

Review your goals periodically to make sure they are still meaningful to you.

Control the situation, because you need to be sure that the implementation of your goals is going according to plan. No goal remains unchanged. Goals help you set direction and keep moving forward toward your vision of the future. When this picture changes, so do the goals. You are adjusting your daily activities so that it matches your new goals and vision of who you want to become.

Reward yourself

Residents of small Australian towns have a problem with mass obesity due to a sedentary lifestyle. To address this problem, the Timboon Behavior Analysis Team and local VicHealth have developed special methods. They gave pedometers to the employees of the medical services center and introduced special system incentives so that everyone walks at least 10 thousand steps a day. Additionally, once a week they were rewarded with massage vouchers for exceeding the norm by 2,500 steps daily. As a result, people walked an average of 2,100 steps more than normal every day. And the best results were shown by the most sedentary employees. The massage voucher encouraged people to move more.

Think about what reward will motivate you at every step of the way to your goal? The main thing is that the reward is small and meaningful.

Personally, I call a real goal the one that doesn’t let you sleep and wakes you up in the morning like a rocket. It gives strength and courage to do what you have not done before or done poorly. You want to tell your friends about it again and again, you think about end result your goal and now you are ready to hear your biggest mistake...

The most main mistake is that enough talking, let's act. Damn, you've already seen and heard this millions of times. What can I tell you then so that you start taking action...

What is the main reason for the unattainability of the goal?

A goal is a dream that comes true. I highly recommend reading it, especially the end, but after reading this one.

Usually, when a goal is set, you immediately see prospects and immediately encounter problems. It's unavoidable. And this is correct, but only for the first moment. When your brain turns a dream into a goal, you immediately begin to see problems. And somewhere in the subconscious, your brain associates your goal with problems. And problems need to be solved very quickly, but in most cases, your goals cannot be solved in a week/month. Well, except if you have a lot of money at the beginning. By the way, This important point. After all, I tell you how to set goals and achieve them without starting capital. This is the first reason why you don't achieve your goal. Your brain associates the goal as a problem without solving it short period time ( week or month), the brain begins to give you . I wrote about this in a previous article.

How do you need to set a goal correctly in order to achieve it?

Rockefeller suggests that the goal is money, this is a failure. I had this happen, I share my bitter experience. In the summer of 2015, I made enough money with minimal effort. The perfect combination that brought me to autumn depression, where I drank a lot of alcohol and caught the powerful McConaughey. And then Sardarov’s books finally crushed me. The only thing that helped me get out was that I got a job, and this gave me at least some reason to get up in the morning, and not at 15:00, as I usually did. Scary times, I'll tell you. On the outside I showed a successful façade, but on the inside I was rotting like the portrait of Dorian Gray.

From here I conclude that you need to set several goals that will be combined to achieve your main dream. Home dream for any person is to be happy. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps. Therefore, you need to understand that 3 ((three goals) will help you achieve your dreams : health, woman, business ( or career*).

* - not everyone needs to go do business. In general, to be honest, I want people to work only for me because I am ready to give you more than others, so that your life is comfortable. I have recorded this. You can open it and read it.

Who needs a million dollars earned if their health has deteriorated and loved one? Fuck this.

Goal #1. Health.

You need to start from the inside, so your diet needs to change urgently. My fitness friend says there are 3 (three) super simple methods watch your diet:
- don't eat too many fatty/sweet foods ( meat, sausage, candy, milk, beer, etc.)
You can eat fried meat, candy, buns, etc. but only in small quantities. If you used to eat meat every day, then reduce your intake to 2-3 days a week.
- eat small portions, but 4 times a day
Morning at 7-8, lunch 12-13, noon 16-17, evening 19:30-20:30
- chew your food well
Even these small portions can be stretched and chewed thoroughly. If you feel hungry after eating, this is normal, the food has not yet been absorbed, 10 minutes will pass and it will pass.

And it's very easy to do. Check out this food video post where I have collected videos that will be very helpful for you.

Oh yes, to follow up, sign up for a gym and train 3 times a week. Walk through all the exercise equipment, run on the paths. Stay on your toes.

Goal #2. Woman.

It's either good or very bad here. There is no middle ground. Here is either the question: “how to meet?” or “how to maintain a relationship?” You've probably heard the answer to this question, and here it is: “Be yourself.” Is it seriously that simple?
If you are a mattress, then you will find yourself a mattress girl.
If you are a talker, then you will find yourself a chatterbox girl.
If you are beautiful, then you will find a beautiful girl.
But, if you are beautiful and rich, but not a braggart or a pushover, then you can find and choose any girl.
But, if you are confident and interesting ( I have something to talk about with you), and not rich and handsome, not a softie and a talker - then you can also find and choose any girl.

Meet on social media networks, reveal what you like and what you do. Be open - and talk to new girls every day. For example, you are discussing something on social networks/forums and you liked the answer of some girl - write to her in PM, you already have a reason why you wrote - further develop the dialogue.

As a result, you will meet someone and be able to build a relationship. So I say, be yourself and you will find a girl who will either like you for who you are or who will like you because you are just like her.

Goal #3. Business.

1. Go to work for those who have already done a similar business
Did you think that you only become millionaires when you start your own business? You are right in thinking, you only need to start a real business that will allow you to realize your dream with money you have already earned. My friend says that the most important thing is is constantly saving money. From here we draw 2 conclusions:

you need to start a business from the bottom.
Go to the area in which you want to open own business, and get to know the entire interior kitchen, etc. For example, what did I do? When I came to the interview, I said that I was ready to work very hard for a week and if you are satisfied with the results, then you will hire me, and if not, then I will leave, you don’t need to pay me. I spent a week sniffing around and looking at the results. I experimented with everything I could. Without spending your money. And I got negative results. And I was so hoping that it could work for me. But in reality everything turned out differently. I drew conclusions and understood how to do it right.

P.S. My main income at this time came from freelancing, so you should be on the safe side before acting like this. But this is the approach that will give you results. I say this because I went through it.

When earning money, save 30-40%.
Over time, when you come to the conclusion: we open an office or work remotely and meet once a month - you need to somehow pay for the work of other people. Only a few will agree to work for an idea or for a percentage of a hypothetical profit.

2 more bonus and very important advice that will speed up the achievement of your goals.

The first is that you need to find a person to realize your sub-goals ( health, relationships, business). There are already coaches who talk about how to achieve your goals. They are located in your city or on the Internet. Find them and let them help you, both for money and for your feedback about them. There is also a barter option. You give them what you do. If you have already reached the point where you have a product ( product or service).

The second is that you will specify everything. For each goal, you need to write down the date by which you need to complete it and the steps to achieve it. Remember what I wrote above about recommending this article for reading? Read it when you're done here.

How to set goals? Algorithm for Achieving Any Goal

1. Turn your dreams into goals. Read how to do it
2. Set 3 additional goals.
3. Find a person on the Internet/in your city who has already achieved what you want.
4. Start your business from the bottom.

Conclusions on achieving goals

You can see that I wrote most about business. This is because I, like most people, do not pay enough attention to the first 2 goals. This is especially true for entrepreneurs, who are told that business comes first, and then health and relationships. I thought so too, but I assure you, no business is worth having poor health and loneliness.

That's all, Andrey Kos was with you. See you in the next article about self-confidence.

In this article we will reveal the principle of setting a goal for an enterprise and the main methods of its formation.

You will learn:

• What goals should you set on your life path?
• Why do you need to set goals in business?
• How to set goals correctly.
• How to learn to set goals for yourself and your subordinates.
• What strategies will help you set a goal and achieve it.
• How SMART helps you set goals.

What goals are important to set on your life path?

Usually the goal is inextricably linked with achieving the final result, and it does not matter whether it is tangible or whether the movement was aimed at gaining something intangible, for example spiritual development, studying science, gaining new knowledge. On the way to his dream, a person goes through many intermediate tests, conditions for achieving results. If, for example, we take schooling, then among other tasks in the form of acquiring knowledge, graduating from an educational institution and obtaining a certificate, we can also consider intermediate goals, which may include communication with classmates, visiting developmental sections, success in sports. You should not make the goal absolute; the path to achieving it is no less important, and sometimes even more significant, than the task itself.

A person’s goal is often inextricably linked with his dream, but, unlike the latter, the goal presupposes active actions to achieve results. In your thoughts, you can think through ways to implement tasks and weed out what is difficult or almost impossible to do. In dreams it is much easier to build an algorithm of actions and calculate everything possible options and, after weighing all the pros and cons, begin moving towards the implementation of your plans. When dreaming, a person intuitively understands and feels what he is capable of, what he really wants, so he begins to mentally go through possible options for solving problems. Then, having drawn up the most optimal plan of action, he begins the path to achieving his goal.

It is goals - large and small, personal or for the benefit of other people - that all make a person move forward, not stop there, develop and set himself more and more new tasks. Born from a dream, a goal becomes the key to gaining new knowledge, acquiring useful skills, helping to develop talent and gain life experience.

Do you need to set goals in business?

Any business activity is constantly and inextricably linked with setting new goals. This is required both by modern conditions and the very specifics of production. There are various situations when management is faced with the need to set new or rethink current goals and objectives.

A very common situation in this regard is when a company has problems in its work: loss of customers, falling profits, refusal to cooperate with suppliers, financial difficulties. In such circumstances, management begins to analyze the situation, look for the cause of financial problems, and calculate new ways and means of attracting customers and increasing the company’s income.

The next stage is organizational activities to identify weak points, production optimization and management reorganization, search for optimal logistics solutions. At this stage, there is a need to formulate other tasks in the company’s activities, which is accompanied by a rethinking of old ones and the setting of new goals.

An alternative situation, when an enterprise is faced with the need to search and set new goals, is the need for development. The company operates successfully and stably in the market, but management understands that its activities can be larger, profits higher, and the sales market wider. Then management sets new tasks and goals for the staff and looks for opportunities to expand production. Then an analysis of the work of competitors is carried out, and if the rival company is more successful and its profits are higher, then appropriate conclusions are drawn and new goals are set.

Why is the correct goal setting and choice of priorities in the company’s activities so important? It would seem that the company operates stably in the market and is developing, so why constantly set new tasks for employees and lead the company towards some goal? The answer is simple: if you don’t know what your company is striving for, what goals are set for it, then it makes no difference how it develops, with whom it cooperates, or how it conducts its main activities. Often, for an enterprise, the lack of a goal becomes the primary source of problems in its work; if it does not strive for anything, it stops in place and makes no attempt to go beyond the existing circle of circumstances, even if functioning in them is successful.

Any time external factors outside the immediate environment are capable of change, and those who are not ready for this may experience financial difficulties or even cease their activities. Correctly set goals stimulate the company to develop, make it more sustainable, and allow it to keep up with the rapidly changing market. Don’t forget about your competitors: if you always stand still, having achieved some kind of success, and continue to strive for nothing, then sooner or later more active and advanced companies will begin to force you out of the market. Setting new goals and objectives is vital required function, allowing management to support the activities of the enterprise and develop.

But goals and objectives are not the same thing, although goals often mean tasks and vice versa. It is important here to accurately understand the differences between these two related concepts. Always on the way to the goal whole line tasks, the solution of which leads to the desired outcome. The achieved result is the goal, and the tasks are those intermediate stages that the company faces every day as it moves towards its goal. A simple example: when purchasing a spinning rod, we do not set ourselves the goal of buying a fishing rod, we want to catch fish. In order to achieve your goal, you need to solve the simplest problems - take a spinning rod, spoons, reel, fishing line, go to a pond and, most importantly, start fishing. It is worth remembering that the goal must be commensurate with the means to achieve it - it will be very difficult to catch a huge pike with a spinning rod designed for catching small perches.

But what if you were unable to correctly identify and formulate goals for yourself or confused them with tasks?

Let's look at a simple example. In a certain town there were two providers providing Internet access. One of them was a government official, clumsy, but since he for a long time was the first and only one in the city, then most of clients was behind him. Then a new provider came to the city and built a modern high-speed network. And he lured almost all Internet users to himself, providing them with more flexible tariffs and better technical conditions.

The old provider began to lose customers - rumors about a new, more consumer-friendly provider and more convenient and favorable conditions providing access to the network quickly spread throughout the town, and after six months the old-time company had absolutely no users left.

The old provider began to make attempts to return customers, for this he laid modern network, made similar tariffs, forced technicians to post bright advertisements throughout the city. I also hired several technical support people to call old clients and invite them to return.

So what's the end result? Old clients have not returned. When they began to find out why the massive phone calls population did not help attract customers, it turned out that the operators believed that their goal was to inform subscribers about technical improvements in the provider’s network, they called for the sake of calling. Although in fact their main goal was to return old and attract new consumers.

When the company developed a different strategy, operators began calling and offering people better rates and more stable work network, customers began to return to this provider.

Any activity is aimed at achieving a goal that is not directly related to this activity. To be successful and achieve your goals, it is paramount to determine what you ultimately want to achieve, and also have a good understanding of the quantitative parameters of what you want. For example, if the company's goal is to increase profits, then it is necessary to understand exactly how much it should increase. Don't underestimate your strengths: if you feel that you can find a way to increase your company's profits not by 30, but by 45 percent, go for it! After all, perhaps you will find some way to increase the company’s income by a significantly larger percentage. At the same time, there is no need to justify this particular increase in profits.

A competent manager should pay attention to the clear formation of a goal - clear, precise, well measurable in quantitative and qualitative terms, which will be easy for staff to see and understand. It is also necessary to stimulate and inspire the team to achieve the set goal, so that employees are interested in going towards it. In this case, the path should be divided into clear control points, so that upon reaching these markers the personnel understand whether they have gone astray and whether they are doing everything correctly. If the goal is not clearly defined, enterprise employees may constantly ask themselves: “Are we moving in the right direction and are the ways to achieve the goal effective?”

Any goal should be formulated as clearly and accurately as possible, no matter in what form it will be. Written on paper ballpoint pen, laser engraved on a steel plate, or a poster that greets workers at the entrance every morning - the goal should be concise, understandable and accessible to understanding by all participants in the process of achieving it.

How to set goals correctly

From a competently and accurately set goal, one can formulate an idea of ​​​​the enterprise’s place in economic relations and not to display this aspect as a separate strategic tool, but in this case you should not overload the goal with corporate elements unusual for it.

How to correctly formulate and set a goal for an organization, how to make sure that every employee sees the meaning of their work and understands the path to the desired result?

First, you need to understand what the organization’s activities are focused on and what its leadership is striving for. A prerequisite is a maximum understanding by managers and heads of departments of what the company wants to get from its work. It is advisable that this be clear to every employee. It is easiest to understand the goal in just emerging companies, because from scratch it is always easier to understand what the enterprise’s activities will be focused on, and besides, at the very beginning it always appears certain group people, which forms the main vectors of development.

The same team sets the corporate code, which makes it possible to understand whether the hired employee is suitable for the company, whether his personal interests coincide with the priorities of the enterprise - this makes it easier to weed out unsuitable candidates at the very beginning of the activity.

The most difficult period for a company is always the first period, in which the intentions of the organizers and the direction of the company’s work are formalized. And at this stage, the main thing is not to go into maximalism, not to set yourself unrealistic goals, not to idealize your activities. Also, there is no need to make the amount of profit absolute: it is great that the company will always have a positive balance, but you should not strive for some fixed value. Ideally, income should constantly grow, but in the early stages of an organization’s formation this is not always the case.

First of all, it is necessary to formulate a plan of tasks, the implementation of which is paramount at the initial stage of the enterprise’s life. Resolving these issues may require quite a lot of time - six months or even a year, depending on the company’s field of activity. During the formation of the enterprise and its establishment internal processes Many goals appear, the achievement of which allows the manager to see the near future of the company. At this time, tasks that were included in the priority list by chance are identified, processes within the enterprise are simplified, and as a result, some current issues are resolved based on the results of those already implemented earlier.

As a result, by the end of the first stage of creating an enterprise, several of the most important, large-scale tasks remain.

After this stage it is worth expanding the vision to more a long period and try to predict the development of the company for a period of three years, from five, and even try to imagine what the organization will be like in 20 years. Next, you need to determine the objectives for the enterprise for these long-term periods, and also decide for yourself what intermediate results you would like to receive at each of these stages. You can draw the simplest function, in which to place marker points and assign each of them certain features, forming an understanding of what goals the company must achieve at each such moment and with what result to complete each stage of its existence. In ideal business conditions, such a function would produce straight lines for any period, but in reality, the development of an enterprise is much more complicated.

A vision of what a company can become over a long period of time gives us several convenient tools for implementing activities on the way to the goal.

• Firstly, Today average term the existence of enterprises is constantly decreasing, by this moment it represents a period of 10–20 years, so completing the tasks of the longest planned time horizon can be considered the desired goal of the enterprise. In addition, this period allows us to find something that unites all the primary tasks and, on the basis of this, bring them to a common denominator. In turn, this will enable us to choose the most important, fundamental goal.
• Secondly, we have a chance to see the parameters of the organization not in quantitative terms, but in qualitative ones, since the further we expand the time frame of the company’s existence, the more we move away from specific numbers and indicators to more qualitative characteristics. Digital quantitative parameters usually accompany workers, simple tasks companies, but planning for longer periods helps us see quality indicators, abstracting from numbers.
• Third, It is very important that, consistently moving through the planning stage through certain phases of the organization’s existence, we will set ourselves only current goals and objectives at each stage, gradually increasing their scale. This will allow, in the early years of the organization’s existence, to separate itself from the temptation to take on too large-scale tasks that are not feasible in the early stages of the enterprise’s formation, that is, to put forward to the company only issues that it is able to solve at this stage, and not waste time and resources.

Having determined what goals the company will strive to achieve at each stage of its development, it is necessary to consolidate this in clear verbal formulations. Without missing the key meaning, you need to choose words so as to formulate the corporate goal as clearly and accurately as possible.

In order to inspire strength in workers and make them a single organism To achieve the goals of the enterprise, the following conditions must be met:

• We must use strong active verbs, such as become, achieve, achieve, do, improve. These words themselves have a certain power and contain symbols of success.
• Work in a company to realize a set goal and its very achievement should make people extraordinary, while the work itself in the company becomes a symbol of the uniqueness of the person working in it. This condition is satisfied by the goal “to become the undisputed leader in the region where the enterprise operates,” to become “the best organization on the market.”
• No buts! The goal is absolutely achievable! Employees should not have any doubts about the implementation of the general development line developed by the enterprise.
• The goal should not be in opposition to the moral values ​​of employees, since otherwise there will be a constant turnover of personnel, people will not be able to step over their conscience and, for example, sell a low-quality product.
• The goal must be set so that it is worthy of effort; people themselves must want to achieve it.

Once the enterprise's vision has been precisely formulated and material appearance, for example, in the form of a production development plan written on paper, it is worth checking whether it contains the path that the company intends to move, and whether the market segment in which the goal will be achieved is mentioned.

Often, when forming ways and means to achieve goals, managers do not clearly formulate the plan of action. For example, one company drew up the following long-term plan:

1 year: “Enter the market and become one of the leading companies in the supply and installation of household air conditioners in Yekaterinburg.”

3 years: “Become a leader Russian market household air conditioners."

5 years: “Get into the top five market leaders climate systems and air conditioning systems in Russia."

10 years: “To become the only supplier of air conditioning systems in Russia.”

If you carefully examine the last wording, you can see that it does not specify in which segment the company intends to become a leader. This could be large wholesale and supply of industrial systems, or maybe retail. This is not directly mentioned in the wording. In addition, if a company is going to cover large wholesale, small, and even retail, then it makes no sense for it to start such a large-scale enterprise, since it is very difficult for a company to successfully compete in various market segments, and if it comes to retail trade, then contact It makes no sense at all - there are too many active competitors.

IN in this case The thesis can be formulated differently: “To become a leader in the market of industrial refrigeration equipment and climate control systems in Russia.”

In this phrase, it is impossible to assess the scale of the company’s activities; we understand that the company considers the whole of Russia to be the market, but whether it will be large wholesale, small wholesale or retail is again unclear. Undoubtedly, the word “industrial” already gives an idea of ​​the markets that the company will try to enter, but this is still not enough for a complete understanding of the development goal.

If we introduce the concept of large wholesale into the formulation, then it becomes the most complete and it contains both a vision of the company’s goal for the long term, as well as the features and methods of achieving this goal. Let's see what the most complete expression would look like:

10 years: “To become the leader and sole supplier in the large wholesale market of industrial air conditioning systems and climate control equipment.”

From this definition it is already possible to build a long-term development strategy for the company:

1. Create an extensive network of branches throughout the country.
2. Carefully think through and implement logistics.
3. Achieve special conditions in the regions, gain unique access to government contracts.
4. Eliminating competitors by creating unfavorable price conditions for them, making the work of small suppliers unprofitable and taking their place, even if at first there is no profit, or the branches will incur losses.

Taking into account these strategic points for the company's development, the final formulation of the long-term goal could look like this: “Become absolute leader in large wholesale supplies of industrial air conditioning systems and climate control systems throughout Russia through the creation of a large dealer network and placement service centers, allowing not only to sell equipment, but also, by providing convenient and professional service, to prevent competitors from entering the occupied market.”

Tasks

Having formulated the main perspective, we must then consolidate the goals and objectives of the intermediate stages, through which we are guaranteed to achieve our main goal. Here we already have a need to solve many problems, and it is better to divide them into two fundamentally different groups: qualitative and quantitative.

Qualitative tasks consist of organizing the process of achieving the company’s intermediate goals. They are carried out within the company and are not visible from the outside, but it is the success of their implementation that allows you to enter foreign markets and achieve what you want there. High-quality internal tasks and their solution are the very foundation that forms an enterprise, allows it to enter the market and successfully compete in it.

For the company in the example with climate control equipment, these qualitative tasks may schematically look like this:

• Creation of an effective system of working with the customer.
• Development of logistics, creation of a cargo transportation system, logistics centers.
• Implementation of an effective procurement system.
• Organization of service from installation of systems to subsequent warranty and post-warranty service.

Each of the tasks described above, in turn, is divided into several stages, and all of them are no less important. For example, reducing product costs through the introduction of more advanced and cost-effective technologies, or improving the quality and productivity of labor on the basis of specialized training for company specialists and improving their professional skills and qualifications.

In addition to the internal qualitative tasks that any successful enterprise solves, there are linear tasks. They already go beyond the internal boundaries of the enterprise and are identified at the stage of goal formation.

The company's interim plans and tasks, whether qualitative or linear, are united by one rule: the closer the horizon for their solution, the more specific they should be. A period of three months is considered optimal: if a task is not solved within a quarter, then it is hardly possible to cope with it in a longer period.

Any goal set for the enterprise, any intermediate tasks should not be made absolute, since the external conditions in which the company enters and operates vary all the time, the world does not stand still, and what was good yesterday can lead the company to today. ruin and bankruptcy. Therefore, goals and objectives need constant improvement. It is not necessary that the entire staff know about these changes; it is enough that the management monitors all movements environment and makes timely adjustments to the company's plans and objectives. The company's global setting can remain unchanged and even better if it remains so, provided that the goal was chosen correctly at the very beginning, but the company's current plans and objectives need to be reviewed and edited every three months. At least once a year, the company’s management needs to correlate the selected main goal of the company’s activities with changes that have occurred in the market, and adjust it to improve the efficiency of the enterprise.

The practitioner tells

How to set goals in perspective

Anton Kharitonov,

In order for an enterprise to successfully achieve its goals, management needs to know what performance results will be an indicator of effectiveness. When the team begins to understand exactly what results you want to achieve from the company, as well as what are the ways and mechanisms for achieving the goal, then the company will develop dynamically and move towards success. The process of achieving results is always cyclical; having gone through the previous stage, you can confidently build the organization’s activities for the future on its basis; planning goals and objectives for subsequent periods depends on past results.

How to set goals for yourself and your subordinates

Often, company management, for one reason or another, sets incorrect goals for its subordinates. And employees, instead of solving the current problem, are engaged in the implementation of less significant matters, while the main plans remain unattended.

An example is the following situation.

One company that produces fiber optic cables decided to reach its planned turnover within six months. To do this, the company needed to sell products worth $10 million.

The director formed a department, whose employees within two weeks had to call old clients and search for new ones and offer them the company’s products. If potential customers reported that their immediate plans included the purchase of optical cables, then operators recorded the volume of these theoretical requests. As a result, the employees collected an amount exceeding the planned amount - $25 million. All data was recorded and transferred to the customer relations department. When the results were summed up, it turned out that the goods were sold for only $2 million, which is 5 times lower than planned.

Everything turned out to be very simple: no one took into account that with ordinary telephone contacts With customers, the sales department forecast sales of only $2 million. And with the increase in the number of calls, the indicator of potential customers and the volume of applications increased. But this in no way affected the real needs of consumers for cable products: talking about buying and purchasing a product is not the same thing. As a result, the company planned sales for 10 million dollars, received preliminary data for 25 million, and sold only 2 million. The company relied on information about the likelihood of concluding transactions; the sales department was given a goal - to collect information, although they should have formulated it differently - to sell the product. The main goal was replaced by an intermediate one.

Also, on the way to achieving the organization's goals, the interest of the staff plays an important role. But here it is worth considering one factor: if motivation comes from above, from management to subordinates, then a huge share of its power is lost along the way: the goal set by the authorities takes the form of an imposed one. The most effective type of motivation for activity is the one that comes from the employee himself. Therefore, presentation methods are often used, when an idea is brought up for discussion by the team and any employee can express his point of view on the question posed. Even criticism from the staff is useful in this case, as it allows you to consider the topic from all sides and evaluate possible options.

Very often, employees lose motivation to work when they begin to be burdened with many tasks and several goals are set for them. A person tries to solve everything at once, but in the end nothing is done. This is partly due to the fact that when there are several tasks, responsibility for each of them decreases and entails a drop in motivation to cope with this task and achieve the goal in the activity.

Any enterprise can have only one main goal, the rest are either intermediate, or components of the main one, or influence the achievement of the global goal.

We need to go to the goal rational way. If a person sees and understands that achieving what he wants is not possible, he loses motivation and stops making efforts. When setting goals, you always need to evaluate your potential. Sometimes not only one specific employee of an enterprise, but also the entire staff can lose motivation. For example, non-payment of wages for several months can greatly affect the interest of the team of an entire company. Within each enterprise, motivation should be carefully analyzed, this allows us to better understand in what way and under what conditions the enterprise can count on achieving its goal.

The practitioner tells

How to set goals together with company employees

Anton Kharitonov,

commercial director of the Mediateka company, Moscow, Novosibirsk

A couple of years ago I was the head of one of the large trading companies. At that time, the company was not doing very well, working capital was declining, employees who had worked in the company for more than one year were leaving.

By the time I joined the company, there were just over 30 people left on its staff, and even those did not see any special prospects for themselves. Having met the team, I gathered them all in one room and briefly told them about myself. After which he asked everyone to think about how to get the company out of the crisis, and suggested presenting it in a small computer presentation.

Realizing that the company’s employees know better than me the processes that took place in it in last years, as well as the mechanisms through which the company conducted its activities, I relied on obtaining the most objective, first-hand information with which I could understand what was hindering the organization in its development.

As a result, by the appointed deadline, I received more than 20 excellent presentations in which employees offered their ways of developing the company, as well as ways to solve the difficulties existing at that time. After analyzing the information received, I was able to identify problem areas in the work of the company’s departments, and also received a complete understanding of the mechanisms of interaction between services and work with partners.

After that, I personally spoke with each employee, explaining his individual goals and objectives and clarifying what specific ways this employee sees for himself to achieve his goals.

The policy of the company's management has changed, it has become more open, people have hope for the development of the enterprise and stable conditions labor. I also explained to the team that the company was facing serious structural transformations and the creation of new processes internally, which at first should lead to a decline in activity and, accordingly, a decrease in wages. But in long term The company’s performance will increase significantly, which means the salary of each employee will also rise. As a result, after painstaking and difficult work the company came up with excellent data, and people, having believed me in the first stages and going through difficult path with a drop in income and serious changes in the company, they began to earn much more.

How to motivate yourself to achieve your goals

The electronic magazine “Commercial Director” shares a life hack on how to turn a dream into a goal and achieve results.

5 successful leadership strategies: how to set goals and achieve them

Strategy #1: Commit yourself. You should always choose one specific goal, you should not choose two or more goals at the same time, limit yourself to just one, this will allow you to concentrate on solving one task and throw all your energy into its implementation, without wasting time on trifles.

Strategy No. 2. Decision making. Having chosen one thing as your goal, throwing all your strength and potential into the implementation of one specific idea, you have given up other opportunities for the sake of it. This is a brave move. And in order not to doubt the correctness of your actions and to support yourself on the path to achieving your chosen goal, it is worth occasionally imagining in your imagination what feelings you will experience in the end when everything you have planned succeeds. Imagine how you win, how inspired you are by this, how proud and happy you are of yourself; the taste of these sensations will allow you to stay on your chosen path and bring the work you started to the finale.

Needs that make the chosen goal important to you:

• thirst for power;
• independence;
• control;
• confession;
• status;
• justice;
• safety;
• risk and feelings from it;
• self-realization;
• personal growth;
• influence on others;
• desire to prove something.

Strategy #3: Persist. Never give up, be strong, don't give in. No one, ever! No matter how big or small, never give in. If it gets really difficult, try to overcome negative moods and cheer yourself up. Think positively, such attitudes will help you survive and win.

Strategy #4: Reward yourself and learn. Learn. In our minds, learning new things and rewards are inextricably linked. When the learning process occurs and the subsequent implementation of the acquired knowledge, our brain reacts in a special way. In the future, to motivate action, the brain produces the hormone of joy and satisfaction ahead of time, stimulating some activity even before it begins and receives a reward. Break any task into blocks, and when you complete them step by step, praise yourself. For example, you need to interview several employees, but you don’t like such events. In this case, at the end of the first conversation, praise yourself for your courage, this will give you strength for subsequent ones.

Strategy #5: Develop good habits. To do any work, we need willpower and motivation. But they are not endless, so train and develop stable algorithms of actions and behavior in standard situations, so you don’t have to waste your limited valuable resources, save them for something more complex, and perform simple procedures automatically. Train your willpower.

How to set goals using SMART

SMART is a standard for setting goals, according to which each of them must be correlated with five criteria:

• It must be specific. Any performer needs to understand what they want from him and what goal is set for him. Before giving instructions to an employee, it is necessary not only to assess the possibilities of implementing a given task, but also to imagine ways to achieve the goal set for the employee, you need to see a specific algorithm of actions, especially if the person is performing this task for the first time.
• The result must be measurable. In order for the employee to understand whether the goal has been achieved and at what stage of implementation he is, he needs to be given a tool for measuring results. Indicators for assessing the completeness of the result must be accessible and understandable. With this approach, the calculation of remuneration becomes transparent for the employee.
• The goal must be achievable. An employee performing any task must be provided with everything necessary to carry out his work. It is also worth taking care of appropriate financial support. In addition, in order for a person to develop professionally, a goal must be set that is difficult to achieve, but at the same time it must be achievable.
• The goal must be compatible. It is very important that the goal does not contradict specific job responsibilities employee and at the same time fit within the general line of the company. To complete his task, a specialist must set goals that do not require him to go beyond the limits of his powers, the main thing is that he can rely only on his own strength in the course of work.
• The time-bound for achieving the goal must be determined. Subordinates, even at the time of receiving the assignment, should have an idea of ​​the time frame for carrying out their duties, both intermediate and final. But as the employee completes the task, it is necessary to track the stages and make adjustments according to deadlines, if any are required.

The SMART system allows you to clearly see the effectiveness of each participant in the process of achieving the goal, how fully he invests his efforts. This technique also makes it possible to fairly distribute remuneration for work in the form of bonuses. If the system shows the employee’s utility below 50%, then his activities can be considered ineffective (see. table).

Calculation of bonuses based on performance results

Often, the SMART system is implemented in the form of a program installed on employee computers, and for each individual work specialty it is necessary to clarify the parameters by which the system can automatically monitor the effectiveness of its activities.

The system has no restrictions and is very flexible, through it it is possible to more accurately formulate tasks and set goals for a specialist, but it is worth remembering that an employee has the greatest motivation when he sets goals and objectives for himself, and his manager agrees with them and approves, then An employee easily achieves significant results in his activities.

• It is unacceptable to stop at the achieved results; something new is always needed, further goals and objectives.
• Don’t waste your time on trifles, don’t pay attention to anything that prevents you from achieving your goal, if some obstacle appears on your way to it, remove it from your road.
• You should rely only on yourself and at the same time be absolutely confident in your abilities.
• Be more decisive, search, look for different ways to cope with the assigned tasks and the problems that arise in achieving them.
• Mistakes are possible, don’t be afraid to make them; learn from your own and analyze the mistakes of others in order to prevent them in similar situations.
• It is worth rewarding yourself for intermediate successes on the way to your goal.
• Achieve your goals, but don’t neglect your principles.
• Do not rely on someone, but always listen to other people’s advice and analyze the opinions of third parties on the issue you are solving, if among your friends there are no those who are able to help you cope with some task. Take advantage modern technologies, communication in specialized online communities will allow you to see a variety of solution options.
• Remember that thoughts tend to materialize. Describing your thoughts allows you to simplify and organize them, making them more tangible and more accessible to both you and your partners.
• Don't be afraid to take the first step, even the longest path to success starts small.

The practitioner tells

How goals are set based on the concept of goal management

Ruslan Aliev,

General Director of CJSC "Capital Reinsurance", Moscow

Our company implements the concept target management. First, we define global goal in the company’s activities, after which we record it in master plan development. Secondly, we form specific goals for the near future: one and three years. They are written into the operating plan - a serious development tool for any company.

We consider the ability to correctly define and set goals for the team to be the main skill of a manager. It is important that goals are determined jointly with each employee. Also, all team members are given the opportunity to communicate with the manager based on the results of their work and discuss with him further prospects for the company’s development. Based on the results of our activities, we formulate more complex tasks– an employee should not stand still; on the contrary, having reached a certain level, he needs to continue to develop and realize himself in more complex projects.

To evaluate the performance of each specialist, we implemented automated system, allowing you to track its effectiveness. Using this program, we can evaluate both qualitative and quantitative performance criteria. For example, for the sales department the target indicator will be the volume of profit, that is, a quantitative parameter. And for personnel providing working conditions for the company, they are more relevant quality criteria(for example, one that reflects the effectiveness of the legal department or HR staff).