Bosses complain about people not taking initiative, not taking advantage of opportunities, and not nipping problems in the bud. Bosses observe people doing things right, following the procedures but failing to pick up the fact that in certain situations following the right procedures takes you to the wrong outcome. As the saying goes, leaders focus on doing the right things while managers focus on doing things right. 

And doing things right means following set out procedures. 

However, when doing things right fails to satisfy clients or collect the money or generate new sales or other such things bosses and leaders tend to become frustrated and complain about people not taking initiative, not taking advantage of opportunities, and not nipping problems in the bud. When this happens, bosses and leaders want their people to use their heads and do the right things. In other words, they want their people to use some initiative, be innovative, and be creative.

People get confused:

• Should I follow the rules & procedures?
• Should I use my imagination and not follow the rules & procedures?
• Damned if I do; damned if I don't! [and that's not a good way to be thinking]

Leaders need to narrow their focus and dig deep into work-tasks.

For Routine work-tasks we need to establish systems and processes. Many business gurus have taught this…Michael Gerber’s E-Myth series is a good enough what-to-do manual for Routine work.

not-Routine work-tasks require a different type of attention. Few business gurus teach this. I have found Edward de Bono is the best guide…he has written over 70 books on creative thinking and how it can be applied to business.

I have tried to Seek Simple…

In the above picture of Routine work and not-Routine work you see the 80/20 Rule coming into play…at least 80% of our time is spent doing Routine work. That’s the light green part. A much smaller amount of time is spent on not-Routine such as strategizing, idea-storming, and innovating. That’s the dark green part.

Does this visual look a little like PAC-MAN? I hope so. Routine work tends to eat up all of our time. This includes making mistakes and fixing them. This includes fire-fighting the same old types of fires over and over again. Routine work eats up our time and our opportunities for creative thinking.

Here is one example - Leaders need to simplify Routine work to remove communication-confusion…McDonalds provides the best case study. Simple tools like checklists help: checklists stop airplanes from crashing and infections from spreading during major surgeries. If checklists can work such wonders in the airline and medical sectors you can be confident they will do the same thing at your business.

not-Routine work requires a different approach...

not-Routine work-tasks require different skills. And, as educators like Dan Pink point out and companies like Google prove, not-Routine work involves a fun-factor.

Creativity happens when people are motivated. People are motivated when they are working in a Strengths Zone.

Creativity can be taught.

Everyone has creativity…many of us have to un-bury it. There are quick-and comfortable ways of doing this.

And, Creativity is an essential ingredient in the magic potion of business success in the 21st Century.

For many years, self-help and business gurus have cited a Harvard Business School study summarized as follows:

In the 1950's, Harvard interviewed students in the graduating class of its business program. They found 3% had written goals while 97% did not. Harvard followed up about 20 years later to measure the financial success of these students. Harvard found the 3% of students who had written goals were earning as much as the other 97% combined.

Many authors of self-help books and business-help books have cited this study. Sometimes the dates change. Sometimes it is Yale and not Harvard. Always, it's 3% written goals = 97% without written goals.

But...here's an eye opener. 

The fact is, there has been no such study...it is like an urban myth¹.

So, with that huge-justification-for-having-written-goals myth busted...

Can we link written goals to greater success?

The simple answer is Yes.

Written goals help people achieve greater success.

We know this from everyday life:

• we know it when we read a STOP sign
• we know it when we make a grocery list
• we know it when we mark a friend's birthday on our calendar
• we know it when we make a reservation at a restaurant

When it comes to business and job success, we should have no doubt about it:

WRITTEN GOALS HELP PEOPLE ACHIEVE GREATER SUCCESS.

In business, we do not need astonishing 'facts' like 3% delivers 97%. We already have the 80/20 Rule. People can buy into the 80-20 Rule because we can illustrate it to them by digging into the facts of their roles and their businesses. When we make hyperbolic claims, like 3%=97%, people intuitively know we are talking about getting them in over their heads.

We need to be realistic when we talk about Goal setting. 

For business and job success the Top 2 questions leaders and planners need to ask are:

1. What Goal Culture do we want? [What form will our written goals take? How much detail do we want in those written goals?, etc]
2. How do we create and communicate that Goal Culture? [so people buy-in and people feel good about doing the Actions we desire]

Footnote:

1. We know this because my friend, Lois Raats, and I are working on a 'time management' presentation. As part of our preparation work, Lois researched this topic and discovered the frequently-quoted Harvard study never happened.
2. If you want to learn more about what people have written and placed in their websites about 'The Harvard Study'  visit Google and search "Harvard 3% success".