a word on goals....

More and more, I increasingly appreciate how “deliberate practice” is fundamental to really improving one’s tradecraft. For far too long, I assumed that repetitive practice was making me better, only to realize that in some respects, I was only repetitively practicing mistakes.  In order to break this pattern, I have been focusing on breaking down the mechanics of my work and focusing on fine-tuning the discreet elements, a number of which have a disproportionate impact, relative to their size, on my net effectiveness to do my work – building partnerships, closing deals and raising funds. 

Many of these elements are seemingly simple and perhaps “so obvious that they are the least obvious” disciplines. I’ve been embarrassed to realize how often I neglected so many simple yet fundamentally important disciplines Case in point; I recently rediscovered a neglected practice by first noticing how it was adversely affecting the effectiveness of others’ work.

From proposals to business plans to conferences to meetings, I saw all these people making the same error.  And then, much to my discomfort, I realized I was one of those people, making the same error.  It was like shaking your head at a bunch of people with stains on their shirts, only to get home and see that you spent the entire day with your fly down. In We all had a shared problem - the lack of a clear incremental goals.   We were doing things without a clearly intended purpose.

Now, when I talk about goals here, I am not referring to the traditional understanding of goals, whereby you set a big, long-range target, i.e. raise $5MM in FY 2013.  Rather, I’m talking about an incremental goal – something compact, immediate, and measurable; something that plays a part in a larger context. Big goals are directional. Incremental-goals are progressive. By way of analogy, it’s proper placement of a single tile that fits into a larger mosaic.

Do incremental goals make that big of difference? In my experience, no question!
Far too long, like many I assume, I used to go into the meetings, calls or conferences with an intuitive sense what I wanted to do/achieve, without setting very clear objectives and how to achieve them.   This “shoot from the hip” reliance on my intuitive sense is at best unreliable and at worst, self-deceiving and lazy. It caused me to miss opportunities and underperform relative to my potential.

I know this because when I adjusted my approach, by identifying goals, my performance ratio spiked. If I had a call, I wrote down the call’s purpose and specific goals. If I met a client or prospect for coffee, I wrote down specifically why I requested someone’s time and what outcomes I wanted to score want. If I went to a conference, I identified why I was going and what return on investment I need to produce. In all case, I did a short post-op and reviewed whether or not, I met my goals – why or why not. Setting incremental goals not only increased my productive, but also improve my clarity of focus and boosted my confidence.

This practice creates three immediate benefits:

1. It forces you to think “incrementally” – Focusing on the discrete steps that blaze a clear path to a macro-goal.
2. It creates a consistent feedback that measures your daily performance ratio - You learn what is working and what is not.
3. It adds to a discipline of practice that will hone and fine-tune you’re the mechanics of your work... Again, it’s an indisputable fact that the more you “practice deliberately,” the better you will become.

Granted, I imagine that this all seems like an obvious point, one that everyone knows…. Maybe it is… but in my experience, therein lies the deception - it is so obvious that it goes overlooked and unutilized. In my current state, I am finding that more and more the attention I pay incremental goals, they greater impact they have on my work…. I’m closing more deals, I’m building more partnerships and I’m raising more funds than ever before….

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

 ~ John Gower, Confesio Amantis, 1392

  

kdk