Balance Your Portfolio of Goals

How many goals do you have?

Some days I have too many to count. It's easy to lose track of how many goals I'm working on at any given time. How about you?

It's better when we keep a definitive list. It's easier to track and complete those goals when we know what they are and when they are right in front of us every day.

The real advantage to keeping a careful watch on how many goals we have is to avoid holding onto competing goals. When we have goals that not only oppose each other (by competing for time, resources, attention) but distract us then we are not at our optimal best. How can we complete two goals that compete with each other?

Setting goals that compete with each other is not a formula for success.

When it happens, spot it, fix it, and move on. Each and every goal should support our overall vision or mission. When they don't, they might compete with each other -- and with our focus of attention.

Do you have any competing goals? How can you reconcile that?

-- Doug Smith

Front Range Leadership: High Performance Leadership Training

doug smith training: how to achieve your goals

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Unfiltered Feedback

Every leader needs feedback from someone who will tell the truth no matter what.

Who is that someone for you?

-- Doug Smith

Compassionate Feedback

What do you do when you know that your feedback for someone on your team will be tough to hear?

Before I learned better, I would sometimes just keep the feedback to myself. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, after all. And they made it this far without that feedback so...

But that's not the most compassionate approach. Withholding something that could make someone's life and performance better is not being sensitive, it's being ineffective. Tell them what's going on. Tell them what you are thinking. Offer your suggestions.

It can still be kind. It can even be graceful. It might even contain a bit of humor. But it's best as feedback when it is clear and to the point.

Prepare for that difficult feedback. You already know that there are right ways and wrong ways to deliver feedback. Plan, and practice. Get it right.

Before you give feedback imagine how it would feel to hear that directed at you -- and then adjust accordingly.
Be the boss you always wante…

How Does Your Feedback Feel?

Centered, high performance leaders carefully consider what their feedback feels like to others before delivering it.

-- Doug Smith

Learn From Feedback

Are you getting all the feedback that you need - or do you sometimes avoid it because you won't like what it says?

I've been known to avoid some critical feedback. It doesn't make me feel good. Sometimes, there's nothing that I can do about it anyway. But, by avoiding the feedback altogether I could miss the piece of positive feedback inside, or the advice that truly matters, or an opportunity to communicate more clearly and reach better understandings and agreements.

Feedback can feel like hard work, but it's worth it.

If we want to achieve our biggest goals it helps to know how we're doing along the way.

Goal achievers learn from feedback every day.

We don't have to apply every piece of feedback. And for heaven's sake, we don't have to take it personally. As my much respected graduate school professor Dr. Jay Desko has said, "feedback says more about the person providing the feedback than it does about the person receiving the feedback." …

Truth or Tales?

True story: when I was much younger I was known to tell a tale or two. They were usually rooted in reality, but I'd embellish the truth to make it more interesting. Like that story I'd tell about my trip to McSorley's in New York when I ran into John Lennon. We had a nice conversation. Except, he wasn't there. I thought of him, and he lived in New York at the time, but seriously was much more likely to be on the other side of town. Go figure.
How many times did I tell that tale? Maybe once or twice. Once to my best friend at the time. Did she believe me? Not if she knew me well enough...
How about you? Do your fish stories end up with bigger fish than you actually caught? Do you augment reality with some great tales? I got a great gift last December from one of my good friends and fraternity brother, David Spiegel. It's a coffee mug with the saying "Keep telling the stories" written on it. I love it. I don't think that he meant "tell tales." I…

Take the Feedback

Feedback can be hard to take but far worse to ignore.

Take the feedback. What you do with it is your business, but take it. Hear it. Stay curious. Move ahead.

-- doug smith

Keep Getting Feedback

Are you a strong boss?

Are you totally sure of yourself?

Is your team a wild success?

Get feedback. Pay attention. Assume nothing.

The stronger the boss, the more compelling is the need for honest feedback.

Promote honest feedback, listen, and continually improve.

-- Doug Smith

doug smith training

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