The New Year is finally upon us and we have survived all the re-runs of last year's highlights on TV and most of us have had time to analyze last year's failures and successes and have set new goals for this year.
The challenge will be to stay motivated to accomplish our goals. Multiple studies found that 90% of yearly goals are not accomplished and that a whopping 45% are abandoned just after one month. So how do we ensure that things will be different this year and we will buck the trend of the same old, same old this time? I would like to share a powerful tool from our lean manufacturing workshops with you. It's simply setting up charts to track the critical success factors for your goals and posting them in public. How does it work? Let's say your personal resolution was to lose 20 pounds this year. The first step is to break down the goal into realistic steps. Losing it by next week is unrealistic, so may be a loss of two pounds per week would be more likely achievable. Then comes the hard part. We actually have to honestly measure where we are and document our actual weight every day. Create a simple chart, update it daily and post it in a way for your support people to see. Self management comes from motivation and you can use other people's expectations as a powerful force to motivate you and keep you accountable.
If you don't measure daily where you are, how do you know that your efforts are paying off? Case in point: if you want accountability and other people to support you, you need to share your goals, measurements and the actual status with them in an easy and fast to grasp way. Nobody has time to study a chart with numerous confusing data. So keep it simple and show only the most important measurement . Nothing is faster than a chart or a dashboard (like the one in your car) to show if you are on track or if you need help from others.
What works for your personal goals is an effective and powerful way to handle your professional or business goals, too. One of our clients had a cash flow challenge; shipments were always late and up to 90% of them happened during the last days of the month. We started to use the technique described above. We set monthly income goals, broke it down into equal daily shipment values and created a 3'x4' chart. We posted the chart on the outside of the production manager's door for everybody to see and he updated the chart daily. As you can imagine, this created a lot of attention and ideas on how to improve the situation. After three months they shipped 50% of the value in the first three weeks of the month (up from 10%) and after eight months they reached their goal of shipping roughly equal values of products every day. How did they do it? By involving everybody; the job of making it happen shifted from the operations manager to all members in the company. Gone were the crisis meetings during the last week of the month, the frantic calls to accounts receivables about credit holds, overtime to get the shipments ready and the late night shipping efforts. The accountability and responsibility shifted permanently to all team members and by understanding what was needed everybody was able to contribute and -equally important- was proud of their efforts and contribution to reaching the goal.
It's up to you to make the resolution to accomplish your goals this year! Set challenging goals (if you need help, ask for our article on setting SMART
goals), determine on the key success factors and measure them constantly. Posting a graphic representation of the goal and where you actually are and posting it publicly will involve others to hold you accountable and to celebrate your accomplishments. Need help? Our coaches are always available to guide you through the process.
