Entrepreneurship – Goal Measurable
Published March 23, 2012 | 
The greatest goal ever created and developed in the history of man, without a plan, is still just a wish.
Goal Measurable means that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. In the broadest sense, make sure the whole complete goal statement is a measure for the project or tasks. And, if the goal is reached or accomplished, the success is recognizable. However, you should realize and understand that there are generally several smaller short-term measurements that can be added as part of the overall goal, and these are most often referred to as objectives.
Your goal should have measurable progress markers or objectives, so you can have proof and see that progress is being made. To know exactly when you reach your goal, be very specific. We need to complete the initial development of the website by this date, establishes for everyone the specific target date to be the marker or objective. We want to be developing the website is not measurable for all to see and know the results.
Understand that you need to establish and set distinct tangible criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you ever set for your business. So when you measure your progress, you know when you stay on track, reach your set target dates, and are then able to experience the exhilaration of achievement, which in and of itself, serves to greatly spur you and your team on to maintain the continued level of effort required to reach your goals.
You should start by creating short-term goals (i.e. 3 month goals etc.) with several measurable posts or markers along the way. It is important to write a plan of action and processes by listing three separate approaches or optional paths to help you reach your goal. Make note to be certain the approaches/paths are actionable with no hint of vagueness in the description.
You should gauge or measure to assess your progress and momentum toward your goal every week. This should include recording any additional business metrics to determine how well you are progressing with your different approaches. And, if at any time you determine the approaches are working to the level they need to in order to reach your established goals, you can dynamically change and adjust them until you find the optimal path for you.
Entrepreneurship – Goal Realistic
Published March 22, 2012 | Part of the question of achievement possesses the capabilities of setting realistic goals, but that often proves extremely difficult because you don’t always know exactly where you’re going, and the path you need to be on.
Always make your goals realistic, and if you or the team looks at a goal and feels compelled to roll your eyes, rest assured the proposed goal may be in serious trouble from the very start. For instance, establishing a goal to be the #1 anything in an area is a good goal on the surface, but looking at it realistically, just how can you accomplish that if you’re currently a 1 or 2-person operation? In this specific case, a more realistic and highly-attainable goal might be to become a Top 10 anything during your first year and make adjustments going forward.
You have to understand that this is not a synonym for “easy.” Far from it, realistic, in this case, means “do-able.” It also means that the “learning curve” is not a vertical slope; that the specific skills needed to do the work are most certainly available; and that the project matches the overall strategic goals of the organization. A realistic project may test the level of skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t be more than they can handle.
Devising a path or a way of reaching the goal makes it much more realistic. It is also important that the goal needs to be realistic for you and where the organization is at the moment.
Be absolutely sure to set goals that you and your team can reach with some effort! The fine line not to cross is “too difficult” and you set the stage for obvious failure, but then again, too low and send the message that you aren’t very capable. So make sure that you set the bar high enough for an affective and meaningful achievement!
Entrepreneurship – Goal Specific
Published March 21, 2012 | It’s not enough just to be on a path, but more important is the direction in which you’re heading.
When setting your business goals, be specific or use Goal Specificity and never use generic terms like “a few” or “like before.” If you mean 100, then state 100. If for some reason you have to make an “educated guess” or “guesstimate” between ranges of numbers, always go with the lower numbers.
Don’t ever use the expression “We really want to see our sales grow exponentially in the market.” This statement just takes up air, since it has no meaning and does not really express what you really want to accomplish. Instead, state something like, “With the implementation of our new marketing strategy, we highly-anticipate a 25% increase in our sales, and we also look forward to a 42% increase in the number of inquiries about our products.”
By establishing measurable process-oriented goals everyone in your business should be able to relate. You will also know you’re on the right path or track, and if not, then take the right action to correct the processes, get back on the right path to successful achievement of previously established “key performance indicators.”
Goals affect Performance through four Distinct Mechanisms
First, goals serve a directive function through enhanced focus and attention on the direction of efforts toward only goal-relevant activities and away from any goal-irrelevant activities.
Second, goals have an energizing function to everyone on your team responsible for process task execution and achievement. Also, keep in mind that high goals lead to greater effort than setting low goals.
Third, goals affect persistence, especially when participants are allowed to control the time they allocate to task completion, more difficult goals prolong effort. 
There is more often than not however, a trade-off in work between time and intensity of effort. In other words, when faced with a difficult goal to accomplish, it is possible to work at a quicker pace and with a more intense effort for a shorter timeframe or to work more slowly and less intensity for a long window of time.
Fourth, goals indirectly affect action by leading to the awakening, encouragement, discovery, and/or use of task-relevant knowledge and strategies. It is a virtual adage or truism that “all action is the result of cognition and motivation,” but these elements can interact in complex ways.
Entrepreneurship – Set Goals to Create Best Business Results
Published March 20, 2012 | It is extremely essential to clearly define your business processes, milestones and goals, so that others can visualize them as you do.
The process of setting goals gives you and your team a target on which to sharpen your focus, ensuring that your efforts aren’t just focused, but all in the same direction, thus enabling the team to enjoy a greater chance for success. And, by the development of specific process-oriented goals, you create a compass to provide the team with a sense of direction. They no longer just show up for work just to take up space and valuable resources.
Your team will start to quickly assume increased responsibility and ownership of the projects that need to be completed, as a direct result of the new found direction. The process-orientation of the goals you all commit to will give you metric or measurable milestones to allow them to know and ensure specific projects both to stay on track, and within time frames established. And of course, be sure you celebrate milestone accomplishments along the way!
By the implementation of proper processes and procedures for creating goals, you actively set the basic foundation for creating a successful plan. On balance of everything considered, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well… right? 
The first step to getting what you want not only from your business, but your life as well is the consideration of the quality of your goals. So be doubly sure that you take the process of goal-setting seriously.
Understand there is no longer “business as usual” or “the way it’s always been done.” If you create your goals in the “usual way,” they often quickly get forgotten, ignored, and fall to the wayside. Make them process-oriented, succinctly clear, specific, attainable, keep your team involved, and you’ve created a powerfully motivating force for positive change and maximized success!
Entrepreneurship – Process-Oriented Goals
Published March 19, 2012 | You should always look for people with an unbounded capacity to not understand what can’t be done.
Now if you’re like most people, you always tend to selectively delay or put some things off until the last minute. A very true observation once made and often repeated goes, “If it wasn’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.” To illustrate, imagine a mom needing to take the kids to an event like a ballgame, and the dad is right in the middle of changing the car’s oil.
Obviously, this is the result of poor or no planning on their part, which the result is more often than not much less than desirable.
I think everyone will agree that with even a little planning, the dad could have achieved a simple but extremely important goal of keeping everyone happy, by accomplishing the oil change earlier in the day.
Now picture your business, where all too often we fail to master effective lean business planning and set process-oriented goals for ourselves and our business.
Understand that an early step in the dynamic lean business planning process is to set the right process goals. This can be broken down to a two-step process since it’s necessary to 1) always set process goals for the business in general, and 2) always set process goals for ourselves that allow us to reach the business goals. Neither step can be neglected without detriment to the other and ultimate failure to achieve the most optimal process and path to the desired goals and success.
Functions of Process-Oriented Goals
Direction is simply moving in a direction with no finish line, but continued momentum means dynamic movement and processes with emphasis on maximized efficiencies. It’s not about the finish line, but the journey to reach it, and you enjoy every step of the way.
Effectiveness of process-oriented goals is simply the product of metrics and analytics to carefully gauge the impact of your actions and processes. You should just think of measuring sticks.
Progress is similar, in that process-oriented goals provide milestones, so you know you’re moving in a direction somewhere. 
Remember, it’s not a finish line, just a passing point.
Articulation of process-oriented goals gives you needed enhanced focus, without being burdensome.
Motivation is a sign or pointer that gets you on a path that is enjoyable for you to be on; process-oriented goals characteristically generate much greater motivation for action.
So, the main distinctive characteristic between result-oriented and process-oriented goals comes down to the simple fact that result-oriented goals are pure mandates, while process-oriented goals are signs. And, with result-oriented goals, you either succeed or fail, that’s it, nothing more and nothing less. By way of process-oriented goals, you succeed simply by getting on the path, and it continues past milestones, all the way to the moment you reach your goal.