For a lot of people, June-July represents that perfect time of the year to do personal evaluations. Whether this month coincides with your annual workplace appraisal or not, it is always a good idea to have a quick hard look at your goals, achievements and targets against what you set out to do during the year.
BHAGs
A tool used by lean and efficient organizations, the Short Interval Control, is perfect to pull out at this time, especially because it allows you to put in mid-course corrections if your earlier strategy is not yielding the results you hoped for.
Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Everyone should have these. Leadership expert Jim Collins talks about BHAGs – long term visionary goals that you want to accomplish within the course of your career. And to tell the truth, creating seemingly larger than life goals is a great practice to get into because our limits are often self-imposed; you could start out thinking one goal is phenomenal only to achieve it and then some.
REVISIT
Evaluate whether you are still on track to achieving what you set out to do at the start of this or last year. Are you still on course or do you need a mid-course correction?
For example, if you work for a firm where your plan was to be promoted to director but another opportunity opens up to head a different division, do you throw your hat in the ring? Or if there is a merger or acquisition as happens in the business landscape, how does this affect your goals? Or say, there is an imminent restructuring?
REVISE
In the modern dynamic workplace, only a handful of people have true job security. Factors such as consolidations, group level actions and even cost-cutting can leave you rudderless. Whatever your goals are, make sure they are not tied to one organization and that you can execute them whether at another firm or in your own enterprise.
Think about what you will need to do over the next six months to achieve your goals and keep yourself accountable.
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