Achievement ManagementHow To Achieve Great Results – the Art, Science, and PracticeWhat Goals are Worth Achieving?"Nothing limits achievement like small thinking; nothing expands possibilities like unleashed thinking." – William WardGoals worth achieving are mission-oriented goals. Channeling your
grand vision into a specific direction and action makes the difference between being an idle dreamer and being a person with a mission.
Setting Your Goals
Knowing What You Want
"You can have anything you really want but you cannot have everything you wantWhat Goals are Worth Achieving?Goals worth achieving are mission-oriented goals. Channeling your
grand vision into a specific direction and action makes the difference between being an idle dreamer and being a person with a mission.
"The achievement of one goal should be the starting point of another" - Alexander Graham Bell
Effective Goals are:
Stretching, but
Achievable
Some Criteria for Setting Your Goal:What personal qualities or skills do you need to accelerate your business or personal success right now?
What obstacle (internal or external) is preventing you from achieving what you want?
If you had it, what quality or skill would benefit you and the other key people in your life, whether at work or at home?
What have you observed or heard or sensed in others that you wish you had for yourself?
What is something that when you consider the possibility of having it you feel really excited or emotional, i.e. what is something to which you already feel really attached, something that is compelling in its attraction for you? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There Is No Failure – Only Feedback
Failure is not an accident - it's the result of interactions in a system. It has structure and sequence.
NLP teaches you to
habitually take a
systemic view of things - to look at the different elements in a situation as parts of a system which functions for good or ill.
If things go wrong, don't wait for others to change -
start change with yourself. If what you're doing isn't working, do something different. Learning from
feedback means that you are more likely to be flexible rather than rigid in your dealings with yourself and others.
Dealing with Failure
How To Avoid Stupid Failures and Grow by Learning from Failures
"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently" – Henry FordFailure as a Primary Vehicle for Success
"If you give people freedom to
innovate, the freedom to experiment, the freedom to succeed, then you must also give them the
freedom to fail. According to Deepak Seethi of AT&T, the organization of tomorrow will demand mistakes and failures. It is only by trying lots of initiatives that we can improve our chances that one of them will be a star."6
Failure provides a great
learning opportunity and should be viewed as a very lifeblood of success. "Although most people hate to be labeled a failure and love to be labeled a
success, it is only through seeming failure that most of life's greatest successes are achieved. Usually, "failure" or "success" is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder... Failure is very often a misperception about the difference between what exists and goes unnoticed (such as growth and
learning when we fall short of reaching a goal) and what is realized later (longer term success)."5
Differentiate Between
Noble Failure and Stupid Failure
David Pottruck, the CEO of
Charles Schwab, says: "The idea that failure is okay is ridiculous. I am not going to go around the company and reward someone for failing. But here at Schwab we differentiate between noble failure and stupid failure."1
Charles Schwab has a set of criteria for defining noble failure. Noble failure occur when:
you have a good plan and know what you're doing, you've thought everything through carefully, and have implemented with sufficient management discipline, that if you look back in review, you'd conclude it was thoughtfully done
you have a reasonable contingency plan to deal with any initial failure and the contingency plan must have been implemented
you need to debrief yourself and ask what you can learn from the experience that will lead your company to be smarter next time.
Charles Schwab journals their failures and lessons they've learned. They maintain also a display of failed innovations and created a videotape for employee orientation. "When celebration of noble failure becomes institutionalized, people within the organization are more willing to reassess earlier decisions1" and take corrective measures.
Preventing Failure
Failure is not an accident – it's the result of interactions in a system. It has structure and sequence.
NLP teaches you to
habitually take a
systemic view of things - to look at the different elements in a situation as parts of a system which functions for good or ill. This system involves people and a sequence of events, thoughts, feelings, actions and interactions. "Once you understand how the system is working – for or against you – you have a means of structuring things differently in the future, so you can avoid 'failure' again."2
Case in Point: Abraham Lincoln
Failed in business in '31. Defeated for the legislature in '32. Again failed in business in '34. Sweetheart died in '35. Had a nervous breakdown in '36. Defeated in election in '38. Defeated for Congress in '43. Defeated for Congress in '46. Defeated for Congress in '48. Defeated for Senate in '55. Defeated for Vice President in '56. Defeated for Senate in '58. Elected President in '60... This man was Abraham Lincoln.
Case in Point:
MicrosoftMany costly Microsoft product failures provided the learning and opportunity for development of many of Microsoft's biggest successes. Examples include:
Many apparently wasted years working on a failed database called Omega resulted in the development of the most popular desktop database, Microsoft Access.
Millions of dollars and countless hours invested in a joint operating system project with IBM that was discontinued led to the operating system Windows NT.
A failed multiplan spreadsheet that made little headway against Lotus 1-2-3 provided learning that helped in the development of Microsoft Excel, an advanced graphic spreadsheet that leads the competition.4
Case in Point: Jacuzzi
"In the 1950s the Jacuzzi brothers invented a whirlpool bath to treat people with arthritis. Although the product worked, it was a sales flop. Very few people in the target market, sufferers from arthritis, could afford the expensive bath. So the idea languished until they tried relaunching the same product for a different market – as a luxury item for the wealthy. It became a big success."6
Case in Point:
Dell Computer Corporation
"At Dell,
innovation is all about taking risks and learning from failure," writes Michael Dell7, the Founder & CEO of
Dell Computer Corporation. "Today, we're well known for inventory management, logistics, supply chain management, and such, but that wasn't always the case. Back in 1989, we had a very large disaster – large, at least, for the small company we were at the time. The personal computer industry was making the transition to a new type of memory chip, and we found ourselves stuck with far too many of the old kind. That was a costly mistake, and it took us about a year to recover, but we learned from it. The failure led us to develop a new way to manage inventory, and we went from being last place in the minor leagues to where we now win the World Series every year."
Pearls of WisdomEast
Failure is the foundation of success, and the means by which it is achieved.
–
Lao TzuBe not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
–
ConfuciusFreedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Many people dream of success. To me success can only achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents the 1% of your work that results from the 99% that is called failure.
– Soichiro Honda
WestIn the West, our fixation on success discourages us from risk taking because it values
success over
learning, and it abhors failure whether we learn from it or not.
– Parker Palmer
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
– Marlon Brando
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.
– Steve Jobs, Founder, Apple Computer
I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.
– Thomas Edison
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
– Igor Stravinski
Once you embrace unpleasant news not as negative but as evidence of a need for change, you aren't defeated by it. You're learning from it.
– Bill Gates
There is No Failure – Only
FeedbackHow do you react when, in your opinion, things go wrong? Do you:
persist in doing the same thing over and over until, if ever, you get it right? or
think it over and decide what you can do differently for a better result next time?
Don't wait for others to change –
start change with yourself. If what you're doing isn't working, do something different. Learning from
feedback means that you are more likely to be flexible rather than rigid in your dealings with yourself and others.
Turning Failures into Opportunities: The Three Steps
Get rid of all negative emotions – and lean: There is no failure, only feedback!
"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work." – Thomas Edison
Go into a fresh-start mindset – more intelligently: Given the situation you are in now as a starting point, consider various options: what opportunities for and a roadmap to ultimate success can you see or imagine?
Take different views of the situation: Having looked at the scene from your view,
look at it from different perspectives, try each of these views:
an optimist's view;
a pessimist's view;
an anarchist's view;
an architect's view;
a child's view;
a poet's view;
a strategist's view;
a competitor's view;
a customer's view;
a supplier's view;
Salvador Dali's view;
Charles Darwin's view.
=================================================================
Self-Motivation
You can achieve everything you have ever wanted to have, experience, or become. The power has and always will be within you, but nothing will happen until you
get and stay motivated to make something happen, to change your life and achieve your desires.
NLP Solutions: Creating Well-Formed Outcomes
Identifying and establishing well-formed outcomes is the starting point of your journey to success. The intended outcome should not be negative (something you would like to avoid), it should be positive (something you do want to achieve). Focusing on a positive outcome creates a much more engaging concept and gives you a clear indication of your commitment. "If you don't make the choice for yourself in any aspect of your life then, by default, someone else will make it for you."1
Achieving Progress by Applying 80/20 Principle
The
80/20 Principle asserts that a minority (20%) of causes, inputs or effort usually lead to a majority (80%) of the result, outputs or rewards. A few things are important; most are not. 80/20 Principle is inherently optimistic because it reveals a state of affairs that is seriously below what it should be and shows the direction towards a better state. To achieve progress and multiply your output, you must give power to the 20% of resources that really matter in terms of achievement, and get the remaining 80% up to a reasonable level. "Progress takes you to a new and much higher level. But, even at this level, there will still typically be an 80/20 distribution of outputs/inputs. So you can progress again to a much higher level."5...
MoreDelivering Achievements through Coaching
Coaching brings more humanity into the workplace. "Effective coaching in the workplace delivers achievement, fulfillment and joy from which both the individual and organization benefit:"4 Achievement means "the delivery extraordinary results, organizational and individual goals achieved, strategies, project and plans executed. It suggests effectiveness,
creativity, and
innovation. Effective coaching delivers achievement, which is sustainable. Because of the emphasis on
learning and because the confidence of the player (the coachee) is enhanced ('I worked it out for myself!') the increase in
performance is typically sustained for a longer period and will impact on areas that were not directly the subject of coaching."4
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
"
Emotional Intelligence" refers to your capacity to recognize your own feelings and those of others, for
motivating yourself and for managing emotions well in yourself and in your
relationships. "It describes abilities distinct from, but complementary to, academic intelligence, the purely cognitive capabilities measured by IQ. Many people who are book smart but lack emotional intelligence end up working for people who have lower IQs than they but who excel in emotional intelligence skills."3...
MoreEffective Management: Strategic Achievement
The two interwoven parts of
strategic achievement are formulation and implementation. While both parts are essential to achieving superior organizational performance, the implementing strategy is where most companies succeed or fail.
