So, what does one write about in this esoteric domain of organizational goal setting and development? It generally doesn't provide springboards like the sub-prime situation, or our most exciting primaries in decades. As we work with our clients, however, concepts take shape. New ways of looking at things generate new ways of articulating seemingly “of course” issues. Take using our untapped potential, for instance.
Our 30 years of consulting with myriad organizations of all sizes and shapes, made up of people with untold amounts of potential, has led us to codify the process of personal and professional development into a four step, open system, supported by the art of goal setting.
- Step 1. Choose: to be aware of who you are, where you are, to grow, to change, to be more, to tap your potential. This act of positive choice leads one to conscious thought about what could be and how to make it so. Starting with dreams and wishes, those who choose to evolve will set realistic goals to bring them to fruition.
- Step 2. Learn: about yourself, about new ideas, new concepts, new skills, new ways of doing things in your world and practicing them. Thinking alone, however, won't make it happen. Here's where goal setting begins to play a crucial role in developing capabilities. Crystallizing thinking to enable focus on the desired outcomes requires a clearly defined set of personal development goals that, when achieved, will bring you to the levels of competence needed to successfully implement new capabilities.
- Step 3. Apply: new skills, new ways of thinking, new attitudes, to all domains in your life, tapping your potential and getting more satisfying results. This provides new responses and feedback on your new behaviors and performance. When this feedback is integrated into your learnings, the learnings are enhanced, becoming part of the “new” you and supporting an evolutionary process manifested in your behavior. Goals become the vehicle of choice to determine the when, how much, where and why of application.
- Step 4. Evolve: to a higher level of self awareness with all the newness that you have learned, practiced and applied and on which you have received feedback; which brings you back again to making choices based on new, intrinsic values, developed as a result of steps 1 though 3. And the cycle repeats as long as you allow it to do so.
Goal setting is the most powerful tool available for human achievement. Whether you are reaching for personal, professional or organizational growth, it is the one tool that, when used consistently, works every time.
-RSL
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