Author: Mary Ila Ward

Goal Setting – A Series
Research has shown that goal setting, if done correctly, is one of the most supported motivational techniques (Jex & Britt 2008). Setting goals can help you maximize success for yourself and/or the people that you lead.

We’ve all heard of the acronym “SMART” that guides good goal setting:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time bound

I certainly advocate for following these guidelines with any resolution or goal you set. But there are three things that I want to focus on over the next few weeks that have been shown to be important components of goal setting that are not emphasized as much as the acronym components:
1. Goal commitment
2. The law of diminishing returns
3. Feedback
In terms of commitment, before you set a New Year’s resolution, honestly examine how committed you are to the goal. Many people fail because the behaviors that lead to goal attainment are not established by habits. For example, losing weight is one of the classic goal setting examples. If your goal is to lose 10 pounds in 3 months, if you don’t modify your behavior to make it a habit to exercise more and eat less, it isn’t going to work. Your behaviors reflect your commitment. If you’re a leader and need to foster goal commitment with those you lead, here are two tips:

1. Set goals with people you lead versus for them (participative goal setting) -or-

2. If you have to set goals for people, “sell” don’t “tell” those goals.

If you’re interested in reading more about how and why goal setting works and how goal commitment is intertwined in this, check out “Goal-Setting- A Motivational Technique That Works” by Gary Latham and Edwin Locke.

I’ll talk about the law of diminishing returns next week and why feedback is important as well as some tools for providing feedback to yourself or those you lead to round out January’s posts.

Reference: Jex, S.M. & Britt, T.W. (2008). Organizational Psychology: A Scientist-Practitioner Approach. 2^nd ed. Wiley. Pp 247

**This post originally appeared on Horizon Point Blogpost January 16, 2012.
January 13, 2015
Set Goals Then Forget About Them

Hopefully you’ve gotten your 2015 new years resolutions down on paper and have a way to track attainment towards them.

Once you’ve done this, I’d encourage you to forget about the goal(s) for 2015 and instead focus on the process that leads to achieving the goals. Why? Focusing on the long-term often leads to paralyses in the short term. For example, if your goal is to lose 100 pounds, this could easily become overwhelming. If you instead focus on a sub-objective towards that goal of limiting your calorie intake to say, 2000 a day and exercising for 30 minutes 5 days a week, these sub-objectives are much easier to measure on a daily basis and much easier to achieve from day-to-day.

In the case of a business example, if your goal is to generate $1 million in revenue this year, what processes and daily actions do you need to put in place and then monitor to achieve this goal? One thing that might lead to goal attainment more so than focusing on that large target, is what will help you achieve that target daily or weekly like tracking of sales calls made.

There is no better example of how this process or mindset leads to success than how it is demonstrated in Nick Saban’s philosophy. His relentless focus on “the process” leads to incredible results in the form of wins and national titles. But Saban and therefore the team’s goal is never winning the national title. It is always playing the best at every down. Everyone doing their job down after down leads to team performance that results in success and makes the process of getting there a lot less daunting by focusing you’re your next move not a feat that can seem daunting.

Need help with your next move? Focus on the sub-objectives section of our goal setting worksheet.

What is your next move towards success in 2015?

January 8, 2015

Career Spotlight: High School Teacher

Do you love kids? Are you a good communicator who has a passion for coaching and developing others? Is organization one of your strengths? If so, then a career as a High School Teacher may be perfect for you.

On the other hand, if you don’t enjoy being around children or are interested in an enormous salary, becoming a teacher may not be a good fit for you.

High school teachers help prepare students for life after graduation. They teach academic lessons and various skills that students will need to attend college and to enter the job market. Read more at Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Check out this article from The Washington Post to find out the 12 Qualities Great Teachers Share.

What do you need to be a High School Teacher?

Education:

A Bachelor’s Degree is required to become a high school teacher.

If you are a high school student and would like to become a teacher, focus on taking classes in the subject(s) you plan to teach.

If you are interested in a career change to the education field and already have a Bachelor’s Degree, you can enroll in an alternative certification program and become a teacher in 1-2 years. Find out more at Education Portal.

Skills:

High School Teachers know about:

Learning Strategies
Speaking and Active Listening
Critical Thinking
Time Management
Reading Comprehension
Social Perceptiveness

Is the field growing?

ONET reports a “Bright Outlook” for High School Teaching Jobs. Careers in this field are expected to have a large number of job openings over the next 10 years.

According to Teach.com, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education is a great example of an area where there is a high demand for great teachers. Teaching might be an ideal career change for an individual with a degree in one of the STEM areas.

What is the pay like?

What’s the Holland Code* for a High School Teacher?

Interest code: SAE- Social, Artistic, Enterprising

Social — Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Artistic — Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Enterprising — Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Source: http://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/17-2141.00

If you are interested in learning more about becoming a High School Teacher, check out ONET.

Would you want to be a High School Teacher? Why or why not?

*Holland Codes are a way to classify a person based on their skills and interests as well as jobs based on the nature of the work. If you have an interest in knowing what your Holland Code is in order to match yourself to careers to pursue, you can read more about our assessment process.

January 6, 2015

New Years Resolutions 101: Don’t put the cart before the horse
It’s a new year. Have you set your resolutions or goals? Most of us do, but then give up on them by the end of January.

One key reason I see people fail at goal setting in the leadership and career coaching we do (and for myself as well) is because we put the cart before the horse. We set a goal and don’t have any method put in place for measuring progress towards it or achievement of it.

Maybe a couple of examples will help:

1. I’m so guilty of this, so I’ll use myself as an example first.   In 2013, I set a goal for my family to sit down at the dinner table and eat together on average four times a week. And as you can read about in this post, in 2013 this goal was a total flop.   One of the main reasons it was a failure was because I put the cart before the horse. I didn’t put in place a way to track it and therefore my progress towards it, which lead to no motivation and no results achieved.

I reset this goal in 2014, with a plan to track progress towards staying on track for this effort because I felt like making dinner together as a family a priority and a habit is important to my family’s health in so many ways. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law and one of her Christmas presents to me at the end of 2013. It was a simple weekly calendar booklet that had a magnet on the back.    I set out to plan our weekly meals on this, design a grocery list around it and then simply check off the days we had achieved a meal at the table. It was stuck to the refrigerator as a visual reminder all year.

As you can see here, the “5” at the top is the number of days we ate together. Not all weeks were this good, but overall, the goal was met. More importantly, I’ve established a habit that will hopefully keep this priority going without setting a goal for it (and hopefully my mother-in-law knows how much I love this simple tool and has another one waiting for me this Christmas).

2. One of the clients I love working with went about establishing an accountability culture in 2013, and created a performance dashboard to track their progress.

You can read more about their story as a company here. As I now work with this team coaching their managers, I love setting goals with them because they have already established ways to measure performance.   It is not uncommon, when setting goals with companies and individuals for one of the goals, or sub-goals of a large goal, to first put in place a way to measure and track performance towards the desired outcome. With this company, the horse is already there and it helps pull the cart.

If you are looking to set your New Year’s Resolutions or make sure they are achieved, don’t put the cart before the horse:
1. Put in place a mechanism for tracking goal progress and attainment.
2. Make the tracking mechanism visual and put it where you see it ALL the time.
3. Monitor and record performance toward the goal with your mechanism at least weekly.
4. Recalibrate if your mechanism is creating more work, thus decreasing motivation. Don’t get rid of the goal, just find a more efficient way to track it that leads to synergies in other areas.
If you need help doing this, our goal setting worksheet, which includes a section for “measurement” of each goal may help you.

How are you measuring your goal(s) for 2015?
January 1, 2015
Passion + Productivity = Give Back (Real Estate)

As I walk into Micor to talk with their Vice President, Dave Ponegalek, about how they demonstrate passion + productivity = give back in the work that they do, there are signs on every door in the building that say “Thank you Ms. Lydia for your 5 years of service.”   When I arrived, I saw “Ms. Lydia” as most affectionately call her, walking over from the other building with a huge cake in her hand. Her anniversary cake. Everyone in the company has been over at the building celebrating her five years of contribution to the company.

Although Dave never mentions celebrating employee anniversaries as a way the company demonstrates a give back mindset (it is just so ingrained in who they are and what they do it doesn’t seem noteworthy to him), it is just one example of the passion, leading to productivity and giving that runs through Micor Industries.

Micor was established in Union Grove, Alabama, by Mike Heath in 2000. In 2002, the company moved to its first location in Decatur, Alabama, and since that time has grown to be a go-to provider of machined parts for a variety of customers. In addition, the company has won the Alabama Emerging Manufacturer of the Year and has grown to 70 employees.

When asked about Micor’s focus on passion, it is obvious the focus is on being a valued partner to customers by being the best in their business. Micor hires and retains individuals who are passionate about machining quality parts and meeting customer needs.

What strikes me the most, though, in the way that Micor achieves its results is through a relentless focus on tracking and measuring performance. In 2013, a focus on establishing an accountability culture was created. Every important factor in the business was set and measured in the form of a dashboard. It is visual, it is reviewed weekly, everyone sees it and everyone knows where things stand. The next step in this accountability culture is driving the visual reminder of the results that need to monitored and achieved through TV screens throughout the company’s two facilities. This focus on the productivity measures that drive profitability lead to increased rewards for all at Micor.

Because Micor knows the focus on passion and productivity is driven by it’s people, the accountability culture is a part of all the team. “If everyone cares about what they are doing, they are going to give more than their all everyday. They will care if the part ships today instead of tomorrow, and care about if the product is right, packed right, etc.,” says Dave Ponegalek.”

This leads to a focus on continuous professional development, rewards in the form of bonuses when profitability goals are met, gift cards given out at random for a job well done and, yes, anniversary cakes.

The focus on being a valued partner extends beyond customer and employee partnerships. Micor sees itself as a partner in the community. This creates a “ripple effect” as owner Mike Heath emphasizes that being involved in the community leads to better results for everyone.

One example of Micor’s focus on giving back comes through their partnership with Decatur Heritage Christian Academy.    Each year, Micor holds a contest for high school seniors at the school.   The students are required to write about what they want to be when they grow up and are then interviewed by a team. The winner(s) get to job shadow with Micor, which includes a trip to Houston to meet with Micor customers.

“We want to spark interest in our industry and create more people with a passion for what we do,” say Dave. The value of seeing first-hand what an industry and a job is like is, unfortunately, not an experience many high school students get to have or try to pursue.   When a passion for what you do leads to giving back in ways that allow others to spark a passion, we all win- individuals, companies and communities.

You can learn more about Micor by visiting their website at:

http://www.micorind.com/

And by following them on Facebook.

December 29, 2014