Goal Setting

First of all, people are basically goal-directed. For example most people prepare a shopping list before going shopping because it is more effective. Most people are very careful to plan out their vacation in order to maximize the limited time off they have. In fact - a lot of people spend more time planning a 2 week vacation than they do the other 50 weeks of their life. Would you drive cross-country, say from New York to Los Angeles without a road map or a GPS device for directions?   You could because you know that Los Angeles is basically west and south of New York. You could jump in your car and drive west. Somewhere along the line you would stop and evaluate your progress, maybe in Chicago, where you would determine that you were too far north -- in which case you would head south for awhile. Upon finding yourself in Corpus Christie, Texas, you realize that you are too far south, so you would head northwest and continue, eventually reaching some point in Montana. At which point you would get to Los Angeles, if that was your destination. Consider this.  How much time is required to plan this trip?  How much travel time would you save by planning the trip - using a road map, a goals program as opposed to doing it by trial and error?  How much money would you save?  Your return on your investment in planning - in goal-setting is enormous.  Your career - your life is much more important than a road trip.  And the more variables involved, the more valuable are goals and planning. Let's look at some findings from a study on the effectiveness of setting goals. "A study was made of alumni ten years out of Harvard to find out how many were achieving their goals. An astounding 83% had no goals at all. Fourteen percent had specific goals, but they were not written down. Of these people, their average earnings were three times what those in the 83 % group were earning. However, the 3% who had written goals were earning ten times that of the 83 % group!" Forrest H. Patton author of Force of Persuasion Do you (or your people) have a written and specific plan for where they want to go? Do you have specific plans for managing your departments and your subordinates? Very simply, through goal setting, you know that your odds of getting there are better, and that you would do it much faster and cheaper than the process of trial and error.