Success is for most businesses the ultimate goal. However, how you get there will look different for every organization. Unfortunately, many hurdles can get in the way of your company achieving its goals. Although there are some smart strategies you can use to ensure that you stay on track. Read on to find out what they are.
Address the Journey, As Well As the Destination
When it comes to reaching your business goals, it is just as important to focus on the journey of how you will achieve them as it is on the goal itself. Indeed, this is often referred to as the process of strategy execution – that is how you will go about reaching the goals you have set.
Of course, it often feels a lot easier to define your goals than to work out how you will successfully complete them. After all, it’s easier to decide that you will run a marathon, than to work out the specific strategy you will use to ensure you can complete all 26 miles.
Indeed, the reason why strategy execution is challenging is that it requires long-term commitment and action and that rarely can be achieved overnight. However, with the proper focus and understanding of how you will approach the journey itself, you will have much more of a chance to successfully complete your final goal.
Allow Your Team Enough Agency to Actually Achieve the Goal
They say there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’ and as it’s very likely that you will require the hard work and dedication of your entire crew to achieve your business goals, it’s important to make sure they are empowered to work towards them.
What this means is you need to drop the micromanaging and trust your managers to lead, and to offer each member of their team the responsibility for their own work. Yes, this means allowing individuals to have autonomy in the way that they do things and decisions that need to be made. However, if you have done the work in educating them on your strategy they should have what they need to do things while staying in line with the ultimate goal.
Build on Small Success
Another great way of staying on track with your business goals is to set small objectives, and then encourage your team to surpass them. Indeed, there is some powerful psychology at work here because concerning longer-term motivation, seeing some success first is much more likely to keep everyone enthused.
Of course, it is important to note that this strategy can backfire in some situations if it’s not managed correctly. After all, once the initial goal has been completed some people may feel like it’s OK to give up.
However, with the positivity you will have already accrued, and by aligning goals to employees’ values and sources of instinct motivation you should be able to overcome this. Then the goal-setting becomes more of a launchpad for further success than the be-all and end-all of what you are doing.
