Goal setting – the clearest way to measure the success of your company

What happens when you ignore goal setting in your business?

How can goal setting in your business turn your team’s performance from OK to outstanding…

What’s hockey got to do with your business success?

Do you have goals in place for you and your team?

What have you don’t to future proof the success of your business?

Are you doing enough forward planning?

How can your business learn from pensioners who had recent knee and hip replacements?

What have 2 orthopaedic hospitals and a collection of Scottish pensioners got to do with goal setting in your business?

Discover how a group of recovering knee and hip replacement pensioners in Scotland could be putting your business to shame…

Is your business ready for the challenge of goal setting – learn from hip and knee replacement patients that success comes from setting goals

The same principles used on recovering patients in Scotland can be applied to your business

How SMART goals used successfully with orthopaedic patients can work in your business…

How can a group of Scottish pensioners, 13 weeks, and a blank notebook transform the fortunes of your business...?

Business goals work when you follow a few ‘golden rules’…

When was the last time you set really challenging goals for your team?

Do you use SMART goals in your business? Do you write them down?

What can business owners learn from GE and Jack Welch about stretch goals?

How can your business use stretch goals and achieve growth year on year?

What did Jack Welch do at GE to achieve sustained growth for 2 decades?

Stretch your team and you will achieve things you previously thought impossible

Use SMART stretch goals in your business today

Don’t accept ‘Attainable’ stretch for ‘Awesome’

Stretch goals – the key to the future success of your business

How to measure outcome and process goals in your business…

What is a ‘stretch’ goal and how can you apply it effectively in your business?

How can your business’s future be transformed by using stretch goals?

Stretch goals can and will energise you and your team…

Stretch your team to work harder and smarter for business success

Make smart and stretch goals work in your business

Use goals right and give your team focus

Use SMART stretch goals and you will give your team a sense of purpose and a common togetherness

When setting goals in your business you MUST use the SMART system.

Stretch goals can be used in your business to challenge the Status Quo

Making goals alive every day in your business will bring you the success you want

Take 5 scientific goal setting steps to drive your business forward

Don’t let your business stall by not taking goal setting seriously

Use a visual way of goal setting to drive your business forwards

1) Most business owners when they go into business have one goal, to make enough money to survive the first month!

Its frustrating when your business achieves less than it should, but are you doing enough to help yourself?

• For your business to be really successful and to grow you need to do some forward planning.
• Click here to learn the value to your business of goal setting.

2) Are you doing enough to help your business?

Do you have goals in place for you and your team?

Do you have goals in place that guarantee the future growth and success of your business?

In football or hockey, a goal is a fundamental part of the game, it is the difference between winning and losing, success or failure, in business a goal is not as obvious, but just as important, click here to learn why…

3) Just as goals have an effect on motivation, motivation has an important effect on goal achievement.

The key is to prove the power of goals.

This is easy to an elite athlete, train and practice hard and you could be a World or Olympic medallist.

But what about trying to explain the success of goal setting to a group of Scots with an average age of 68, who have just experienced the agony of knee or hip replacement…

Are they ready for the challenge of goal setting? Would you be in their situation? Click here to learn more…

4) Setting goals is the best way to achieve a successful rehabilitation, however as the agony of the rehab is extreme it is not unusual for some people to skip some sessions.

 Click here to read how a study conducted in 1992, done inside two of Scotland’s busiest orthopaedic hospitals provided stark evidence that goal setting works. These same principles can be applied with great success to your business too.

5) In 1992 a study inside 2 of Scotland’s Orthopaedic hospitals provided overwhelming evidence that goal setting works.

The study proved that having challenging goals clearly worked for pain-riddled hip and knee replacement patients.

When was the last time you set really challenging goals for your team? Click here to learn more.

6) As a business leader I am sure you have heard of SMART goals, but do you know what SMART goals are and do you write them down?

Read here how the use of SMART goals over 13 weeks worked for the patients in this study and how these basic principles can be applied successfully in your business.

7) Jack Welch was CEO at GE for 20 years. Jack Welch believed in SMART goals, but Jack pushed for uncomfortable stretch goals not attainable goals.
In his 20 years as GE boss, he increased the company’s market value from $12 billion to $280 billion. That is an increase of $13billion every year for 20 years!

Click here to learn how stretching your team can make them achieve things they did not think possible.

8) An article in The Economist (2011) about Jack Welch’s GE’s stretch goals states:

“...if the right environment was created for the group, setting stretch goals and working toward what might seem to be impossible results often became reality.”

That last line appeals: ‘Impossible results often become reality’.

 Click here to learn how when you stretch your business to try and achieve the impossible, you will come closer than you think…

9) Research strongly suggests that performance and results improve when a difficult SMART Stretch goal is set.

Click here to learn what a stretch goal is and how can you apply it effectively in your business?

10) A stretch goal is an objective that cannot be achieved by incremental or small improvements, but requires extending yourself to the limit for the goal to be achieved.

The goal must be a challenge that is significantly beyond your team’s or your business’s current level of performance. Click here to learn how you can use stretch goals to enormous success within your business.

11) Stretch goals energise you and your team and push you to work smarter and harder to try and achieve it. Click here to learn more…

12) So, what are SMART goals and stretch goals and how can you make them work in your business?

You might be a sceptic… you might think unachieved goals demotivate a team, you might think your team aren’t interested in goals and feel they resist them…

However, you would be wrong! Click here to learn why

13) When used right, goals give a team focus, a sense of purpose, a common togetherness.

They will solidify your team in ways you did not think possible…

Even to the point where that STRETCH goal you set… could be achieved. Click here to learn how…

14) Don’t let your business stall by not taking goal setting seriously. Research proves that scientific, measured, targeted and focused goal setting works. It worked for GE, it worked for hip and knee replacement patients and it can work in your business. Click here to learn more

15)Start using SMART stretch goals in your business today.

 Making goals alive every day or every week will bring your business the success you want. Click here to learn more.

1) Most business owners when they go into business have one goal, to make enough money to survive the first month!

Its frustrating when your business achieves less than it should, but are you doing enough to help yourself?

• For your business to be really successful and to grow you need to do some forward planning.
• Click here to learn the value to your business of goal setting.

2) Are you doing enough to help your business?

Do you have goals in place for you and your team?

Do you have goals in place that guarantee the future growth and success of your business?

In football or hockey, a goal is a fundamental part of the game, it is the difference between winning and losing, success or failure, in business a goal is not as obvious, but just as important, click here to learn why…

3) Just as goals have an effect on motivation, motivation has an important effect on goal achievement.

The key is to prove the power of goals.

This is easy to an elite athlete, train and practice hard and you could be a World or Olympic medallist.

But what about trying to explain the success of goal setting to a group of Scots with an average age of 68, who have just experienced the agony of knee or hip replacement…

Are they ready for the challenge of goal setting? Would you be in their situation? Click here to learn more…

4) Setting goals is the best way to achieve a successful rehabilitation, however as the agony of the rehab is extreme it is not unusual for some people to skip some sessions.

 Click here to read how a study conducted in 1992, done inside two of Scotland’s busiest orthopaedic hospitals provided stark evidence that goal setting works. These same principles can be applied with great success to your business too.

5) In 1992 a study inside 2 of Scotland’s Orthopaedic hospitals provided overwhelming evidence that goal setting works.

The study proved that having challenging goals clearly worked for pain-riddled hip and knee replacement patients.

When was the last time you set really challenging goals for your team? Click here to learn more.

6) As a business leader I am sure you have heard of SMART goals, but do you know what SMART goals are and do you write them down?

Read here how the use of SMART goals over 13 weeks worked for the patients in this study and how these basic principles can be applied successfully in your business.

7) Jack Welch was CEO at GE for 20 years. Jack Welch believed in SMART goals, but Jack pushed for uncomfortable stretch goals not attainable goals.
In his 20 years as GE boss, he increased the company’s market value from $12 billion to $280 billion. That is an increase of $13billion every year for 20 years!

Click here to learn how stretching your team can make them achieve things they did not think possible.

8) An article in The Economist (2011) about Jack Welch’s GE’s stretch goals states:

“...if the right environment was created for the group, setting stretch goals and working toward what might seem to be impossible results often became reality.”

That last line appeals: ‘Impossible results often become reality’.

 Click here to learn how when you stretch your business to try and achieve the impossible, you will come closer than you think…

9) Research strongly suggests that performance and results improve when a difficult SMART Stretch goal is set.

Click here to learn what a stretch goal is and how can you apply it effectively in your business?

10) A stretch goal is an objective that cannot be achieved by incremental or small improvements, but requires extending yourself to the limit for the goal to be achieved.

The goal must be a challenge that is significantly beyond your team’s or your business’s current level of performance. Click here to learn how you can use stretch goals to enormous success within your business.

11) Stretch goals energise you and your team and push you to work smarter and harder to try and achieve it. Click here to learn more…

12) So, what are SMART goals and stretch goals and how can you make them work in your business?

You might be a sceptic… you might think unachieved goals demotivate a team, you might think your team aren’t interested in goals and feel they resist them…

However, you would be wrong! Click here to learn why

13) When used right, goals give a team focus, a sense of purpose, a common togetherness.

They will solidify your team in ways you did not think possible…

Even to the point where that STRETCH goal you set… could be achieved. Click here to learn how…

14) Don’t let your business stall by not taking goal setting seriously. Research proves that scientific, measured, targeted and focused goal setting works. It worked for GE, it worked for hip and knee replacement patients and it can work in your business. Click here to learn more

15)Start using SMART stretch goals in your business today.

 Making goals alive every day or every week will bring your business the success you want. Click here to learn more.

BLOG 1 – Goal setting – the clearest way to measure the success of your business…

Most business owners when they go into business have one goal, to make enough money to survive the first month!

Its frustrating when your business achieves less than it should, but are you doing enough to help yourself?

 For your business to be really successful and to grow you need to do some forward planning.

As a business owner you should not fear setting goals, it is important to remember that goal setting doesn't have to be only about making money.

Setting goals could be about:

• new business ideas
• employee retention
• improving your service

or in fact, anything that is important to enhancing your business.

Are you doing enough to help your business?

Do you have goals in place for you and your team?

Do you have goals in place that guarantee the future growth and success of your business?

In football or hockey, a goal is a fundamental part of the game, it is the difference between winning and losing, success or failure, in business a goal is not as obvious and yet…

…a summary of more than 1000 studies into business goals suggests:

“There is strong evidence that the increases in job performance produced by goal-setting have important economic and practical value”

So even if you fear setting goals the fact is, if you ignore them you and your business will achieve less than it could.

To discover how to use goals in your business today and watch your business thrive – download this 4-page Business Bitesize report here.

BLOG 2 - How can your business learn from pensioners who had recent knee and hip replacements.

Just as goals have an effect on motivation, motivation has an important effect on goal achievement.

The key is to prove the power of goals.

This is easy to an elite athlete, train and practice hard and you could be a World or Olympic medallist.

It’s also easy to explain to a motivated business leader, achieve the goals set out before you, your business grows and you make more money.

These goals are real, they are achievable, these people are ready for the challenge given the positions they are already in…

But what about trying to explain the success of goal setting to a group of Scots with an average age of 68, who have just experienced the agony of knee or hip replacement…

Are they ready for the challenge of goal setting?

Would you be in their situation?

Hip and Knee replacement is painful, bones are broken, joint muscles are severed, recovery is time consuming and very painful.

Even the smallest of movements can be agony.

However, to recover well it is essential that the patients become mobile on the replaced joint as soon as possible… if they don’t, then the joint, muscles and healing tissue will not repair properly.

Setting goals is the best way to achieve a successful rehabilitation, however as the agony of the rehab is extreme it is not unusual for some people to skip some sessions.

Click here to read how a study conducted in 1992, done inside two of Scotland’s busiest orthopaedic hospitals provided stark evidence that goal setting works!

And learn how the same goal setting system can be applied to your business and your business can learn to walk and run just as these patients did.

BLOG 3 – How SMART goals used successfully with orthopaedic patients can work in your business…

In 1992 a study inside 2 of Scotland’s Orthopaedic hospitals provided overwhelming evidence that goal setting works.

The study proved that having challenging goals clearly worked for pain-riddled hip and knee replacement patients.

When was the last time you set really challenging goals for your team?

The researchers who conducted this study gave the patients a booklet detailing the schedule for their planned rehabilitation – this booklet included 13 mostly blank pages with the following instructions:

‘My goals for the week are…?’

‘Write down exactly what you are going to do. For example, if you are going to go for a walk this week, write down where and when you are going to walk’

The successful patients completed all 13 pages with very specific, written down goals and plans…

Why?... How?

The goals were SMART goals…

As a business leader I am sure you have heard of SMART goals, but do you know what SMART goals are and do you write them down?

The researchers in this study proved that SMART goals work. They can work in your business too…

S – The goal must be Specific – going for a walk and writing down where and when

M – The goal must be Measurable – how long is the walk and where is it to and from

A – The goal must be Attainable – can the distance be achieved

R – The goal must be Relevant to you – having just had a knee operation – walking is part of the recovery

T – The goal must be Time bound – the recovery booklet covered only 13 weeks – so the patients had 13 weeks to achieve their goals

The research strongly suggests however that A – Attainable is wrong – this suggests it can be achieved with some degree of ease…

BUT you need to really push yourself to reach your goal, therefore when you change Attainable to Awesome you can keep working on your SMART goals!

Read here how the use of SMART goals over 13 weeks worked for the patients in this study and how these basic principles can be applied successfully in your business.

BLOG 4 – What can business owners learn from GE and Jack Welch about stretch goals?

Scientific research and practical experiences at Jack Welch’s GE, suggest discomfort is the emotion you should feel about the goals you set yourself.

Here’s why…

Jack Welch was CEO at GE for 20 years.
Jack pushed for uncomfortable stretch goals not attainable goals.

In his 20 years as GE boss, he increased the company’s market value from $12 billion to $280 billion. That is an increase of $13billion every year for 20 years!

An article in The Economist (2011) about GE’s stretch goals states:

“...if the right environment was created for the group, setting stretch goals and working toward what might seem to be impossible results often became reality.”

That last line appeals: ‘Impossible results often become reality’.

So where does that leave SMART goals

Although SMART goals get the thumbs up from many research studies one element of SMART proves to get in the way of your high performance!

S – they must be Specific
M – they must be Measurable
A – they must be Attainable – change this to AWESOME
R – they must be Relevant to you
T – they must be Time bound

The research strongly indicates the middle A - Attainable is wrong!

An Attainable goal suggests a sense of comfort with the goal.
Change ‘Attainable’ to ‘Awesome’ and you keep yourself stretching for that goal.

Jack Welch pushed for stretch goals not attainable ones.

To read more about how you can be like Jack Welch and make stretch goals work for your business click here.

BLOG 5 – Are your business goals outcome and process driven?

Research strongly suggests that performance and results improve when a difficult SMART Stretch goal is set.

So, what is a stretch goal and how can you apply it effectively in your business?

A stretch goal is an objective that cannot be achieved by incremental or small improvements, but requires extending yourself to the limit for the goal to be achieved.

The goal must be a challenge that is significantly beyond your team’s or your business’s current level of performance.

Stretch goals energise you and your team and push you to work smarter and harder to try and achieve it.

The term stretch goals was first invented by Jack Welch, former CEO of GE to denote those objectives that seemed unachievable with the present resources.

Jack believed that when it came to Stretch goals it paid to have 2 types of goal:

Stretch Outcome goals – GE had a SMART stretch outcome goal – to be No.1 or No.2 in every sector they worked in.

Stretch Process goals – GE had SMART stretch process goals – every company, division and manager at GE had KPIs to achieve every week and month.

Have you set you and your team stretch goals? Does this goal really stretch your team?

Are your goals outcome and process driven and how are they measured?

Set your business an impossible challenge… stretch yourself to achieve an ambitious goal that as a business seems unobtainable, and you will see your stretch goal stretch your thinking, planning and actions.

Watch the profits of your business grow by applying the science of stretch goals… Get your free 4-page business breakthrough report here now. 

BLOG 6 – Key insights for your business – make SMART and stretch goals work in your business

So, what are SMART goals and stretch goals and how can you make them work in your business?

You might be a sceptic… you might think unachieved goals demotivate a team, you might think your team aren’t interested in goals and feel they resist them…

However, you would be wrong!

When used right, goals give a team focus, a sense of purpose, a common togetherness.

They will solidify your team in ways you did not think possible…

Even to the point where that STRETCH goal you set… could be achieved.

SMART goals are Goals that should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

When setting goals in your business you MUST use the SMART system.

Many believe that the A should be AWESOME – change this and you elevate the goal to another level, whilst keeping to the SMART system.

There is plenty of research to back up the fact that SMART goals work.

They worked for a group of elderly patients recovering from hip and knee replacements, they achieved and exceeded their goals by following the SMART system.

Stretch goals can be used in your business to challenge the Status Quo, because a STRETCH goal requires pushing your team beyond their current limits -  these goals often feel unachievable.

They will challenge your team to commit, really commit and sometimes even if a stretch goal is not achieved, just by getting close your team will have achieved more than if the goal had not been set.

See the goals wheel exercise and the GE orange exercise below

The goals wheel will enable you to practice setting SMART goals in your business.

The orange exercise was used by GE at a series of innovation days and it proves that stretch goals really work.

 Use the power for SMART and Stretch goals in your business today.

GOALS WHEEL EXERCISE 

This is a visual way of using goal setting and it’s something you can do for yourself. You’ll find a blank wheel on the last page of these resources, please print it out and run the following process.

The coloured wheel below has six segments. Each segment has a label – you choose the labels for you and your wheel.

Assume this is my goals wheel and I’m taking a 12-month time frame.

- I’m happy the segment labels are appropriate for me

- I’ve drawn on the wheel a black line that represents where I am now compared with where I want to be in 12 months’ time (100%)

As you can see from this wheel I’m doing well at my finances and family. I could do with doing something more for my community, spend more time with my friends and should be working out a bit more. What’s in serious need of attention is the orange segment; work.

- So I’ve drawn a purple line to show where I want to be in the next 8 weeks – requiring a significant stretch and improvement

- This requires action so I’m going to do three things: I’m going to talk to my work colleagues about the excessive hours I’m doing to work out what I can delegate or

stop doing; I’m going to commit to seeing all the games my daughter plays after school; I’m going to leave my laptop at work on a Friday evening

Thanks to the hip and knee replacement patients I know I need to anticipate challenges and have a solution ready.

- My work colleagues are also under work pressure and may be unable to take work from me – if so I’ll investigate hiring a part time or virtual PA

- Customer pressures might prevent me leaving on time to see my daughter play – so I’m going to block off 90 minutes the morning after my daughter’s games to deal with any pressing customer issues

- If I need to travel to a customer on Monday and need to take my computer home on Friday I’ll give it to my daughter for safe keeping (she can hide it)

The goals wheel exercise will enable you to practice setting SMART goals

THE GE ORANGE EXERCISE – PROVING STRETCH GOALS WORK:

GE’s extraordinary success, growing from $12billion to $280billion in 20 years, is partly thanks to their focus on stretch goals. To demonstrate the power of stretch goals and to get the buy-in of managers, they ran an exercise at a series of innovation days.

Stretch goals often challenge people because it feels like they’re ‘unachievable’. People are reluctant to commit to stretch goals because they feel like they are committing to something that will fail.

You can use this simple exercise to help demonstrate the power of stretch goals.

1. Give a team of 6 or 7 of your people one orange

2. Challenge them to all touch the whole orange one at a time, as quickly as possible, and for the first person who touches the orange to also touch it last

3. Tell them they can pass it, throw it do what they like to achieve the task as quickly as they can

4. When they are ready time their efforts with a stop watch (on your phone)

5. Whatever time they achieve ask them to have another go but make it faster this time (this works even better if there are more than one group – suggest they are competing with other groups)

6. Whatever time they achieve ask them to have another go and tell them they should be aiming for doing this in less than 1 second (which is what other groups have achieved)

7. If they struggle with this ask them to review what has to change for things to speed up – distance between hands – speed of the orange – and ask them what they can do to influence these variables

Solution - the group stacks up their palms on top of each other almost vertically and lets the orange fall from the first person’s left hand (top of the stack) to the first person’s right hand (bottom of the stack), whilst passing over everyone else’s hand in between – it should take less than a second

BLOG 7 – Take 5 scientific goal setting steps to drive your business forward.

Don’t let your business stall by not taking goal setting seriously. Research proves that scientific, measured, targeted and focused goal setting works. It worked for GE, it worked for hip and knee replacement patients and it can work in your business.

Here are 5 steps to help you treat goal setting as one of your business-critical tasks:

Your goals must be stretch goals – they must be goals that really stretch you, your team and your business. Work out outcome goals and process goals like Jack Welch did at GE and get your people involved in achieving them

Your stretch goals must be specific – use The SMART Checklist (below) to check you have your goals planned correctly

Your stretch goals must be written down – we all work better off a list, something that is tangible and we can refer to – use The Goals Wheel and The SMART Checklist
(below) to help

Anticipate and plan for the difficulties – work out the hurdles you will encounter on the way to achieving your goal, then work out how to deal with them if they happen. Like if you are walking a long way in the heat take some water.

Create regular feedback and reward behaviours – the key to the success or failure of your goal achievement is to make goals a habitual part of your businesses weekly and monthly routine. Regular feedback and rewards for progress and achievement will help confirm this habit and increase the motivation and enthusiasm of the team.

Start using SMART stretch goals in your business today.

Making goals alive every day or every week will bring your business the success you want.

SMART GOALS CHECKLIST

The SMART goal concept is accepted as a practical and easy to remember mnemonic strategy for goal setting. The research from Locke and Latham supports the effectiveness of setting SMART goals.

However, one element of SMART can get in the way of your high performance!

S goals must be Specific

M goals must be Measurable

A goals must be Attainable

R goals they must be Relevant to you

T goals must be Time bound

Locke and Latham’s research strongly suggests that the middle A (Attainable) is wrong, as a stretch goal is not attainable. So, to keep stretch goals SMART, swap attainable for Awesome.

GOALS WHEEL EXERCISE

This is a visual way of using goal setting and it’s something you can do for yourself. You’ll find a blank wheel on the last page of these resources, please print it out and run the following process.

The coloured wheel below has six segments. Each segment has a label – you choose the labels for you and your wheel.

Assume this is my goals wheel and I’m taking a 12-month time frame.

- I’m happy the segment labels are appropriate for me

- I’ve drawn on the wheel a black line that represents where I am now compared with where I want to be in 12 months’ time (100%)

As you can see from this wheel I’m doing well at my finances and family. I could do with doing something more for my community, spend more time with my friends and should be working out a bit more. What’s in serious need of attention is the orange segment; work.

- So I’ve drawn a purple line to show where I want to be in the next 8 weeks – requiring a significant stretch and improvement

- This requires action so I’m going to do three things: I’m going to talk to my work colleagues about the excessive hours I’m doing to work out what I can delegate or

stop doing; I’m going to commit to seeing all the games my daughter plays after school; I’m going to leave my laptop at work on a Friday evening

Thanks to the hip and knee replacement patients I know I need to anticipate challenges and have a solution ready.

- My work colleagues are also under work pressure and may be unable to take work from me – if so I’ll investigate hiring a part time or virtual PA

- Customer pressures might prevent me leaving on time to see my daughter play – so I’m going to block off 90 minutes the morning after my daughter’s games to deal with any pressing customer issues

- If I need to travel to a customer on Monday and need to take my computer home on Friday I’ll give it to a member of my family for safe keeping (they can hide it)

The goals wheel exercise will enable you to practice setting SMART goals

Here’s how you sidestep second-rate results by using the science of goal-setting

Hello,

Here’s a Business Bitesize report to help you improve your business.

You’ll receive these 4-page reports from us from time to time; we hope you find them useful; and we hope you put them to work too. If you do we’d love to hear about it.

Setting Profitable Goals 

It can be so frustrating when your business achieves less than it should.

So how do you sidestep second-rate results?

Business Bitesize in a nutshell...

Ignore goal-setting and you’ll achieve less than you could.

Use goals to give yourself focus.

Use goals to guide your actions and you will achieve greater success.

Here's a proven solution for you...

Make ‘stretch’ goals and planning part of your daily or weekly routines and watch your business thrive.

Supporting tools...

Use our online supporting tools and resources at page link to find out:

• How you can take the five scientific goal-setting steps to drive your business forward
• How to use The SMART Checklist to construct your ‘stretch’ goal-setting plan
• How to achieve your goals by anticipating and planning for difficulties

I hope you find value in this Business Bitesize report.