On Goals Gone Wild

Coach David Clutterbuck: On Goals Gone Wild, and Building Better Coaching in Companies from the Bottom Up

A nice reminder about the systemic nature of goals.  Goals, especially those made within the context of a small business or corporate climate, ripple out.  They are neither made nor accomplished in a vacuum.  For that matter, even the solopreneur’s goals ripple out–perhaps on to his/her family.

Have you set goals for yourself, your family, your career, your business?  If so, who might those goals affect?

Permission to Fail, Permission to Learn

“…the traditional role of trainer has morphed into a “stage manager,” making learning opportunities and tools available to talent who can drive their own learning, guided by their thirst for knowledge that will further their performance.”

via Is Learning In Your Brand? | Human Capital Institute.

I had dinner recently with a college friend.  He’s a great networker, he gets people, and as such, I know of very few individuals who are better at convincing someone that he/she needs what my friend has.  He hasn’t dabbled in car sales since college for nothing.

What surprised me about my friend was his publicly traded company’s approach to performance: weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals set through outsourced software, reviewed by supervisors.  Performance had improved, he claimed.  I heard in his comments a hint of “they better improve or our business will continue struggling.”

I had difficulty lining up this incredibly personable guy with such an impersonal development plan.  And–I hope he’ll forgive me if he’s reading this–this sort of hierarchical evaluation is short-sighted. Clothed in the colors of accountability and productivity, it misses a crucial point in human development.  Performance is not necessarily an indicator of learning. Proactive learners given an environment where they can put their learning to work will always outperform individuals interested solely in performance. Who will ultimately “perform” at a higher level:

• The child who learns through positive reinforcement and selective affirmation or the child kept in line by threats of punishment?
• The teenager given dictated instructions or the teenager who experiences relationship-reinforced trial and error?
• The employee/team/manager given permission to fail in their own ideas for achieving systems-sensitive goals or the ones who fear the consequences of failing to meet someone else’s expectations over which they have little or no control?

Every person, in their own ways, needs permission to fail safely. Does your family, your church, and your business give you space to fail?  In my experience, relational approaches to life at all stages will drive learning and performance more than rules and regulations.

The Learners are Taking Over the Asylum

“In terms of application, formal learning can be useful in the early stages of a person’s career – the novice stage. But as people become more professional, more skilled, and new competencies emerge, they become practitioners. Informal learning is far more useful and effective at this point.”

via The Learners are Taking Over the Asylum | Human Capital Institute.

My best clients are always life-long learners.  They are individuals who constantly look for new learning.  They are ready to learn informally (i.e., self-directed, among other descriptors).  My mentor called informal learning “shared wisdom.”  Life-long learners learn by sharing their wisdom with others, and soaking wisdom up, wherever they can find it.