Your team needs written goals.
The statistics are off the charts…not even close.
Sarah Gregg of The Power To Reinvent relays powerful psychological data saying, “A Harvard Business Study found that people with written goals are x3 more successful, than those who don’t write down goals. And they aren’t alone in their findings. Gail Matthews from Dominican University completed a study with 267 participants on goals setting. Gail’s research found that writing down your goals makes you 42% more like to achieve them.”
If I told you that eating kale made you 42% more likely to have six-pack abs would you eat kale?
I would.
Lead Well.
If you’re looking for more resources to work ON your business, we have them.
Recently we adopted this statement, if you don’t write it down you don’t own it.
Likewise, if you don’t write it down it does not exist.
Writing things down is a powerfully illuminating exercise.
This weekend I was cleaning out our attic and pulled out some of my old notebooks. It stoked reflection about all sorts of discussions and ideas that have taken place in the last couple of years.
It is amazing to see the things that I have written down that have come to reality. Of course, effort is a huge part of it, but the power of writing it down is what jump-started the momentum for the effort to come in and sustain implementation of the idea into that reality.
Take one of the world’s most prolific religions, any of them, what do they all have in common…a book of inspiration.
The written word.
Think about political campaigns, who are the most persuasive people in any campaign?
The speechwriters.
When words get written down, things happen.
We are so obsessed with writing things down, we even made it a unique core values of Business On Purpose.
Here are three simple ways to get your team in the habit of writing and setting them up to achieve the goals they have set for themselves and for the mission of the business.
First, you take the lead in writing everything down. Be obsessed with note-taking, process building, and capturing everything you can capture. If you won’t, they won’t. If you will, they will.
Second, ask each person to write down handwritten notes during team meetings. It will keep team members engaged and will lead to much greater retention, implementation, and accountability of everything that is discussed in your meeting.
Why are meetings so frustrating? Because we don’t write things down and then follow up on those things.
Finally, make a habit every thirteenth week to write down three goals that you will relentlessly focus on for the next 12 weeks. Brian Moran writes brilliantly about this in his book “12 Week Year”.
We’ve used the 12-week planning process for three years and it creates incredible clarity for our entire team!
We love it so much we created an entire live, in-person event around building 12-week plans. On Thursday, September 24th, we will host our next live 12-week plan event in Bluffton, SC for two seatings (9:30a, and 1p) and would be delighted for you to join us if tickets are still available.
Scott Beebe is the founder of Business On Purpose, author of Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, And Build A Business That Matters. Scott also hosts The Business On Purpose Podcast and can be found at mybusinessonpurpose.com.
