To hit your numbers more often, get a mirror

For many leaders, the announcement of a failure to meet their business objectives is almost always followed by steps to identify the offending party responsible for the deviation. After all, if each business unit could be counted on to do its part, the whole would achieve its goals. So when there is a gap in the plan, good leaders seek out those who let everyone down. Great leaders, however, look for a mirror. Here's why.

For years, almost as far back as I can remember, I've done a little exercise with business owners and operators, in organizations of all sizes, encouraging them to stand at the entrance of employees in their building one morning, and ask each associate walking through it two simple questions:

Are you good at what you do? Are you adding value here? or alternatively, Does Your Job Matter?

I promise them in advance that at an incidence rate equal to the purity of Ivory soap, 99 and 44/100%, associates will answer yes to both questions. So if, I tell them, something is missing that the management of the company considers an important goal or objective or if, in other words, the team is not 99 and 44/100th for cent of his plan, the problem can not be with their people. Remember that 99 and 44/100 of them just told you they were:

good at what they do, and they add value to it.

So to conclude that one of them is responsible for the failure would be to misplace the blame. In my experience, in these cases the problem almost always exists somewhere between the lens and the people doing the work. And he can almost always be found if you hand the leader a mirror.

Then ask if, for each goal, these five conditions exist:

Does each associate fully understand the objective? Does everyone on site know why the goal is important? Does each employee know their role in achieving the goal and how to execute it? Does he often check that there are no barriers or obstacles between him and an associate to achieve his individual goals? Finally, and most importantly, does every associate, including the person sweeping the floor, understand and see how, once the company's goals are achieved, life will improve in their home?

Indeed, for a goal to be achieved, all five of these conditions must be met. All five. Not four. Not three and most two more. All five.

It's true that benevolent leaders also talk a lot about these five elements for every goal, until they get tired of hearing the sound of their own voice. Only when this becomes true, when you get tired of hearing yourself talk, will you know you've talked enough about things.

It will be then that you will be fully satisfied that each associate fully understands the goals of the organization, knows why they are important, knows their role and how to execute them, sees a clear path to achieve them, and knows that when the goals of the organization will be achieved, their life will improve.

Coincidentally, then, and only then, can you be fully confident that your organization is fully on track to achieve its plan. Before that, or short of that, there's no excuse for missing your shot besides holding up a mirror and then raising your hand. Because it can't be anyone's fault but yours.

Blaming others when things you are responsible for go wrong is never a good idea. It does nothing to inspire confidence in those who lead you or those who follow you. But by taking personal responsibility and then taking action to answer yes to five basic questions for any goal you want to achieve, you'll more often achieve the goals you and your team set for yourself while improving the lives of others. - which is, after all, why we're all doing this in the first place.