Hope and Dreams

What do you want to achieve in your business? Every owner manager had their reasons for why they started out on that journey – what are yours? And more importantly, are they still valid, are you on track, or are your hopes and dreams being frustrated?

Why what you want matters

As the owner of your business, the business exists to serve you. However too many of the business owners we meet have fallen out of love with their business and some even feel a slave to it, trapped, rather than the business serving their own interests. As the leader, your hopes and dreams, vision and the resulting passion and commitment to your business influences your whole team. If you are disenchanted or lost, you will communicate negative vibes to your team.

It is therefore vitally important to clarify your personal goals and the role that your business plays in achieving those. You should regularly review whether these are still relevant and assess progress against them before working on the business goals you will share with your team.

So, what are your hopes and dreams and what do you want from your business?

There is no one size fits all. There are many objectives, here are just a few:

• • Personal legacy
  • Revitalisation / new challenge
  • Company reputation (the best at … etc.)
  • Improved financial performance (e.g. growth, increased profitability and / or cashflow)
  • The business running without your daily involvement

• Realisation of equity / exit

Regardless of what you want to achieve, it is important to be clear. Make your goals SMART (specific, measurable, accountable, realistic and timebound). Write them down and focus on what is important to you.  This is essential, as it is easy to get distracted with so many things to juggle.

Once you have your goals you can begin to put together a plan on how to achieve them. There are many tools to help you do this, but remember …

• The best goals and plans are owned by the team
• What gets measured, gets done

There is a strand of thinking that suggests that focusing on a single measure, the most important key performance indicator, the one that drives everything else, can be a highly effective way of delivering your goals. Whether you choose that approach or select a few KPIs to focus on, providing real management intelligence that contains leading and lagging indicators, monitoring progress with regular monthly reviews is key.

Creating Time for YOU to Work on the Business

It is all too easy to get immersed in the detail of the business. To get lost in the micro detail and lose sight of what is important. One really useful tool to help wrestle back control is Covey’s 4 Quadrants – see the chart below:

Analysing your time by the four dimensions above will give you a very quick read on how effective you are at focusing on what is important.

• The ZONE is the key area to maximise and, yet it is the one quadrant that most people seldom get to. It isn’t perceived by many as being “busy” or “productive”. Yet time spent here will deliver huge dividends.
• You can’t avoid spending time in the DEMAND quadrant. This is where things get done.
• The quadrant of ILLUSION is a place to avoid. It can feel strangely satisfying as you move swiftly from one thing to the next. However, when you reflect on the outcome there is little to show for the time invested
• Everyone needs to ESCAPE every now and again, but spending much time here is escapism and a road to no-where

Try keeping a log of your own activity and then map them (honestly) to the grid. You may get quite a shock and at the same time give yourself a tool to improve your personal productivity and effectiveness and in so doing help you realise the hopes and dreams that started you out on your journey.

If you would like to discuss any of the above with one of our Business Coaches, please call 03333 440517 or email us: enquiries@pro-actions.com