Focus is so important, it the first component that we need to get right. We need to know our destination, our goal, our objective and then we can look to start planning on how we will get there. Too many dreams fail because as we get into the planning, or even the execution things start to change, but we must remain committed to our goals.
We must maintain our focus, be committed to it. This allows us to ensure that everyone knows the direction we are taking, and we can look to have everyone pulling in that direction. When we chop and change our goals it leads to confusion, and dilution of effort. It is not always easy to stay within your focus, however, and you should know first off that that’s ok! Sometimes, you’re going to fall off that wagon and when you do, it doesn’t make you undeserving of a chance to find success. Let’s say you want to write a book: you need an agent to get under the nose of a publisher, which means you need a book editor or two to ensure that your book is up to scratch. Once you have a pathway in mind, you can get things in motion to get your book out there!
Now whilst we must remain committed to our goals, we need to be flexible in our approach. If we find that what we are doing isn’t working, or if we find a better way to do it then we need to look to change or adapt to a new approach.
Changes in approach do not alter our goals, they just alter the way we are looking to achieve them.
One of my favourite CEO’s to work for, one of his constant messages to us was “the targets remain the targets.”
I loved this consistency because as things changed around us we knew that the goals remained constant. Many thought that this was a hard headed approach because some changes could impact our ability to hit our goals, but our CEO wanted us to have thought out contingencies to deal with any issues that would arise, rather than just think that the goals would be reduced.
This helped to create a winning culture, one were people kept looking for alternatives and tried to succeed, rather than just rebadging failure as success at the first sign of trouble.
Our teams and our staff can be extremely resourceful and we need to make sure they are focused on how to achieve goals rather than how to redefine them as changes, which are inevitable, come about.
If you take the FAST Approach it will help you revolutionise your results and put you in the top 5%, but you must remember the targets remain the targets, and only our approach may change.
If you want to learn more about creating highly engaged teams or being a better leader click the link to view our course.
