April 28, 2007 at 8:44 pm · Filed under business, career
Some of the highlights of my time at my latest job was the speech I heard from the company president and the speech I heard from the company CEO. The president’s speech was especially interesting because it gave a number of tips for being successful in your business career, or even life in general. Though tips dealing with state of mind and proper attitude are useful, I thought the suggestion of written goals was the most useful.
The basic rundown was that every 3 months, you should write down 6 goals. Why write them down? Because it’s much easier to break the goals if you don’t have to stare at them written down on paper (or in this day and age, typed on a computer). The 3 month time frame was done because he felt that if the time line was closer to 6 months, then you’d probably wait about 4 months before starting the goal. Also, another detail was that goals should be broken down 3 “professional” and 3 “personal”. Take the personal goals, write those down, tuck them away, don’t share them with anyone. Take the professional goals, however, share them with your co-workers, boss, etc…to see if they’ll align with company needs as well as your own professional needs.
One especially interesting part on the goals section of the speech was the company president’s belief that we tend to sell ourselves short. He felt that in order to gain the most from these goals, we should make sure that we’ll be challenged in trying to accomplish them.
Oh, and for all of you who are doubting whether or not this strategy will work for you…it’s something the company president learned from one of his golf buddies: Tiger Woods.
One of Jim Rome’s takes is a little monologue on “quitting when you’re behind.” One particularly solid part of this take is his listing off various phrases and changing them to fit the “quitting when you’re behind” theme, the best phrase being “when life gives you lemons…quit.” Well, though we’re not “behind” in the War on Terror, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided that the “lemons” we are getting are too much, and it’s time to quit. At least, that’s what his declaration that the Iraq War is “lost” seems to indicate.
I’ve led a number of teams: in the workplace, in the gym, on the field, etc… and at no point when I was trying to motivate people, did I tell them to pack it in, to go home, that we’d lost. How do you accomplish something, how do you win, if you’ve already decided that you’ve got no chance? Even if we were going to ignore all the positive reports coming out of Iraq as a result of General Petraeus’ counter-insurgency “strategery”, why would you ever admit to the opposition that you’ve given up? Or that that you plan on giving up in the near future?
On matters of the military, I normally turn to Victor Davis Hanson as my number one source of information. He addresses the reality of the situation on NRO’s _The Corner_:
Why does the enemy’s reaction to all this defeatism go unmentioned here at home? “Al Qaeda” in Iraq announces its demands to have its own terrorists in the government as it now names a “shadow cabinet”, even as it releases grisly tapes of mass executions, following recent
attempts to kill hundreds with chlorine gas. These are the evil forces that Gen. Petraeus is trying to protect millions of Iraqis from, and which will win if Sen. Reid’s defeatism spreads further.
I pray for the men and women stationed in Iraq, and fighting over the world to keep us save at home. I hope that they don’t look to people like Harry Reid for their motivation. These great men and women deserve better.
