LEAD to Action!

LEAD to Action!

It is a fact that successful people have intense goal orientation, yet most of us don’t set goals and we certainly don’t think about how we will make sure they occur when we do! Goals help to keep us focused, and action plans make goals become a reality.

How many of us bother to encourage our teams to take their agreed “goals” and make them into “actions” in a formalised way? We probably assume that this will occur. The sad reality is that too many hours are wasted sitting in strategic sessions where all the good ideas positioned and agreed never come to reality, because there is a lack of action planning.

An easy model to use is the L E A D model:

Limit your actions – make the actions specific to the goal’s desired outcomes and document what needs to be achieved

Engage – decide who you need to assist you in achieving the goal and be clear about what you want them to do

Attainable – review why you want to achieve the set goal and make sure that you share this information with those engaged in assisting with its facilitation

Deadline – agree the “by when” date and make sure that everyone is comfortable that they can achieve within the necessary time frame

All sound obvious? Probably, but do we set the time aside to make it happen and ensure that others are also making it happen? Yet we all sit in a following strategic session and feel guilty that many of the wonderful visions we had the last time simply haven’t occurred. Let’s all begin LEAD-ing to encourage action-ing!

What will you do to encourage your team to LEAD, not wait?