Recently, I talked to a client who asked me to give a workshop at a conference that was coming up. I have a few different talks I can give, so I asked her what the meeting was about so I could suggest a topic that would fit. She said that the committee members had already chosen a few programmes, but they hadn't decided what the conference would be about yet. My first thought was, "How are you going to get what you want if you don't know what it is?" But I know enough not to insult people, so we talked some more and came up with a programme that she wanted me to present.
People who don't know what they want to get out of something always surprise me. Even though the example given above is about a conference, it is not limited to that area. Many people work and run businesses, but they haven't decided what they want to get out of it. They're getting things done, but they're not focused on getting clear results.
When I was in charge of human resources, I often helped people figure out what kinds of jobs they needed in their groups. Many department heads would write up job descriptions for key jobs that listed all of the tasks that the employees would be expected to do. I had to work very hard to get these people to understand that people in key positions are not paid to do tasks; they are paid to get things done. Through a lot of coaching on my part, we were able to figure out what the people in each position were supposed to achieve.
Why is it so important to know what will happen with a job, a meeting, a department, or anything else? Because if you don't know what you want to happen, you're probably going to waste a lot of time and money trying to reach a vague goal. There is also a very good chance that the goal won't even be met. Results tell you where you're going. They tell you important things about how to use your time, money, employees, and resources. When you know what will happen, you can keep making important choices. will this help me reach my goal, or will it take me farther away from it?
Having clear goals can also be very inspiring. A coaching client of mine wanted to start a new business and had an idea for it. She was very excited about the idea when she first had it, but she never did anything to get the business going. She kept making up reasons why she wasn't doing anything to make the business happen. I finally got her to sit down and write a detailed explanation of what she wanted the business to do for her. That was the key I had lost. As soon as she wrote down the results in detail, she started doing what she needed to do to get the business going. She took the steps that are needed in any business because she knew what she wanted to happen. She now has a very successful business that she loves after five years.
Some people have a hard time trying to figure out what will happen. It's because they can't figure out what they want for the future and don't know what they want now. You can easily get around this by imagining that the result has already happened and then describing how it looks. Back to the situation with the meeting planner, I asked her, "Let's say it's been six months since the conference and you know it was a huge success. What would you do?" What would have happened to show you that it worked? People are much better at describing the past than predicting the future. By asking the question this way, I was able to find out that the planner thought a meeting was successful if the people who went left with the tools they needed to handle the many changes happening in their industry more easily and effectively. When I found out about this result, I was able to come up with a programme that would help the organisation reach this goal.
Before you do anything, no matter how big or small, you need to know what you want to accomplish. When you do that, you will save time, be more efficient with your work, make more progress, and reach your goal faster. When you know where you want to go, you have a better chance of getting there.
