When I work with clients, they often have a different view of employees and executives. Come to think of it, most people see differences between these two categories. In the workplace, we often think of the obvious differences such as pay and responsibility. But the differences I see are things that we can all improve. What executives, CEO’s in particular do best is actually something that every employee can do to.
What got the CEO where they are today? It all comes down to goals. They had a vision, set goals and put a plan in motion to reach their goals and realize that vision. They are driven enough to stick with the plan and therefore they successful people.
One question that I ask my clients’ CEOs is: What if everyone in your company had the skills you have?
It always leads to an interesting conversation. When I say skills, I’m not talking about what you get with an MBA or years of experience running a business. I’m talking about things that everyone can do no matter what their education level or current position. I’m talking about the following three skills:
Vision
Goals
Motivation
These three categories are the difference between being successful or not. If you have any of these things you will be ahead of the game. If you have all of these things, you will be consistently winning the game.
Again, let’s think about what your company would look like if everyone had these skills. Even better, what if everyone was well trained and using them regularly?
Most CEOs I know have something in common. They have the ability to apply these three skills in at least one are of their lives. Most are applying them in most if not all areas of their lives.
Business: vision for the company, goals to help the company achieve the vision and motivation to work toward those goals.
Home life: vision for their family, goals to help their family live the life they want to and motivation to set priorities in order to keep everyone on track.
Health: vision for how they want to feel and look, goals to keep them on track and in line with this vision and motivation to stick with it because they see the value and know the alternative will not satisfy them.
That is just a look at three areas of life. There are many more examples, but that should give you a good picture. This also brings us back to my question for CEOs: What if everyone in your company had the skills you have?
I’ve yet to have a CEO say that they wouldn’t like this. In fact, this question always leads to a great conversation. Their vision kicks in and they start picturing their employees doing the things that they do for their company and for themselves. This is a pretty picture of driven and successful people. The picture is pretty and it is achievable in any company.
It starts with the vision. Once that vision is clear, all we have to do is set goals to make it a reality. Motivation will carry us through the process of reaching these goals and going from where we were to where we want to be as a company.
Let’s talk about each of the three categories separately. Each is important it its own way, so we should take time to cover them in their own part of the series.
Part 1: Vision
Success starts with vision. Vision is nothing more than being able to look ahead. It seems like this would be an easy task, but it is not. Vision is a challenge because there are so many things happening right now, that it is often difficult to look ahead. It is easier to get caught up in the day to day struggle than it is to keep your eye on the big picture.
As a CEO you have to have vision. You have to be able to look to the future and decide where you want your company to be when that time comes. If your company has been successful, you have been doing this well. If you have struggled, you likely strayed from the vision that you had for your company, either by choice or due to outside circumstances.
Regardless, you have to be able to see what your ideal looks like if you are going to run anything. A company needs to know what it should be doing and where it should be going. Without this vision, how do employees know what they should be doing? How does anyone in the company know if you are successful or not? They don’t unless there is a clear vision established and communicated to everyone.
This is where employees within a company run into trouble. As employees, there is often a job description that tells them what is expected. There is a manager or supervisor telling them what they should be able to accomplish and what their typical day should look like. The concept of work has been engrained in us so buying into this vision is not typically difficult. It can be, but that is another article.
As an individual, health is a little less clear. The vision of what they want their health to look like is often just an afterthought. While there are standards and recommendations to tell them what their health should look like, they haven’t necessarily found their own vision.
Why don’t they have their own vision? They likely did have one at one time. As young kids we all want to be active and as healthy as possible. As we get older we let the vision give way to the day to day and if they don’t line up, we stop pursuing that vision. This is the same in health, sports and many other areas of life.
How can someone live healthy when they don’t have a vision of themselves living healthy? They can’t. At least they can’t on a long term basis. They may be able to make slight adjustments from time to time, but ultimately they will slight back into old habits because they don’t have the clear vision that they need to get where they want to go.
This is happening in companies across the country. CEOs want their employees to be healthy and productive. They want them to live quality lives and contribute quality work to the company. In other words, they want them to adopt the same habits as they have.
While vision is very important, it is only one of the three skills needed to succeed. A vision without action is only a wish or a dream. It takes a game plan to make a vision reality. The next skill does just that. It takes the ideal future and builds a plan that leads us toward it.
Part 2: Goals
It starts with vision, but the next step is where the rubber meets the road. You need goals to even get started toward your vision. It is one thing to see what you want, but it is another thing to actually take action toward what you want.
This is where the successful are really separated from the unsuccessful. Anyone can dream. Anyone can picture their ideal scene. Anyone can think about what they want. What do successful people do when they want something? They do what it takes to get it. They take action and are rewarded for that action by the results that follow.
Taking action is key, but what does it take? It takes goals to take action toward any vision. This brings us back to the company again. The employees of this company have goals. The sales team has sales goals, the managers have performance goals for the sales team and so on. Everyone in the company has goals that are set for them by their job descriptions and their managers.
Hopefully at some point these goals are reviewed and revised based on how the plan is working. But how often does each employee do this in their personal lives? Well, that all depends on how successful they are.
Let’s look at their health for instance. They may have a picture or vision of what they want their health to be. In fact, most people would say that they at least want to be healthy. Unfortunately, the vision is as far as health goes for many people. Even more unfortunately, even the vision has gone away for many as they have started to believe that health is not something they can achieve.
If they are unable picture good health or set goals toward good health, how can they succeed? The fact is that they likely will not. And that is where we are today. The average person doesn’t have a vision for themselves outside of the day to day tasks they have to complete. They do not look long term to a clear vision and they do not set a course toward that vision.
If they had a clear vision, they could set goals. The difference between a CEO and the average individual in a company is goals. The CEO has specific goals that they need to accomplish in order to keep themselves and the company moving in the right direction. That direction is determined by the vision and each goal is set to satisfy a specific objective that will lead them closer than they were the day before.
That is why I ask the question of CEOs: What if everyone in your company had the skills you have? When the skill of goal setting enters the equation, success is usually the answer. CEOs understand this and that is not only why they are successful, but it is a big reason they are CEOs in the first place.
So, what happens when all the employees in a company are able to set goals? They are able to determine their progress. When you know your progress, good or bad, significant or not, you know where you are going. You can tell if you are in line with your vision. A company can tell if they are in line with their vision. When this comes together, it only makes sense that success at all levels is the result.
The CEO has goals. They run the company according to these goals. They also live their lives according to the goals they have set for themselves. When their employees are able to do the same thing, the are going to get same results. They will have their own goals, so the results will be unique, but one thing will be the same: success.
Success can mean many things. The definition of success is setting a goal and reaching a goal. We have realized that health carries over from one are of live to another. Fortunately, goal setting does to. That is why the successful CEO is able to put the same skills in play at home that they do in business. Imagine what a company would look like if everyone was setting goals and reaching goals. What is the result? The result is success in all areas.
Goals are very important. Vision is the starting point and goals are the steps that get you to the vision. But what happens during this whole process? Many things happen and some of those things make it more difficult to continue. What do you do when things get more difficult? Well, that depends whether you are successful or not.
When you have a clear vision and have goals set that will take you toward the vision, you have a plan in place. With this plan it becomes support in itself. When you know what you are doing and why you are doing it, challenges seem to be less significant. This is the result of your motivation.
Part 3: Motivation
Now that we are ready to discuss our third skill, let’s define it. Motivation can mean many things to many people. To me motivation is the reason we do what we do. We’ve discussed the importance of motivation, but let’s be clear on what it means.
I have heard people say: “I’m just not motivated” or “I would but I don’t have the motivation”. First of all, we ALL have motivation. We all have our own motivation. This is the main reason we are in the health situation we are in now. The people that are living healthy lifestyles have not only found their motivation, but they are using it to keep them going.
How does that work. It’s not as complicated as we think it is. When you start setting goals to reach your vision, you have to look at the reasons you want to get to that vision by accomplishing the goals. When things get more difficult, you simply have to weigh the options. If what you are doing has a clear purpose to you and you can think of a strong reason to keep doing it you will keep doing it.
This is where the short term try can turn into the long-term change. If your motivation is clear, you will think about the alternative and remember that it will not satisfy you. The CEO has gotten very good at this. They have seen many situations that were just not good enough. They didn’t luck out of these situations. They saw how the situation didn’t match their vision, they set goals to overcome the situation and they did just that.
All successful people, CEO or otherwise, are able to do this. In fact, all people are able to do this. The problem is that the average person doesn’t practice this on a regular basis. We get used to not reaching goals or not having them at all. It gets too easy to say we don’t care…maybe you really don’t about the little things. Pretty soon the little things add up and we have some big things coming out of the habits we are used to. When this goes too far and we realize that NOW we want to change, it is very difficult because we are trying to undo years of habits.
That is where we are today in our country and in our workforce. Many CEOs look at their company health and see a bunch of unhealthy people. That is not what I see. I see people that aren’t using the three skills we’ve been talking about. I see people that lack the following:
Vision
Goals
Motivation
As we discussed in parts one and two, these skills are not only learned, but they can be improved with practice. Why do you think successful people continue to be successful? They are in the habit of setting goals and reaching goals. The clarity of their vision and the motivation that they have to achieve it are continually measured against the alternative. They continue to choose their goals over the alternative. The more they do this, the more they succeed.
It is a cycle that anyone can get into. You just have to take these steps. The more you do it, the more you succeed. You simply have to choose your vision, goals and motivation over the alternative. As a leader in your company, it’s as simple as sharing these three important parts with your team. The more they choose to stick with them, the more success they have and the more success your company has.
Every employee has the ability to take the steps that their CEOs take. They can learn and improve upon the very same skills. The best part about this is that you can practice in any and all areas of life. Health is a perfect place to start because it is something we all want. When people have a vision, can set goals and have the motivation to keep moving toward it, they become successful. The more they do it for you, the more successful your company becomes. What looks better to you, a company full of successful people or a company full of the alternative?
Recommend : Anna Sui Fragrance Refinance Home Loan Vaser
superjumpz
Recent Comments