If business benefits from targets we set, and if targets guide our brains to better choices, the next question is how could a target improve your firm? Targets root themselves into the brains’ neuron network system in two main ways.
First, we tend to target vital business choices - based on beliefs that we wire into our brains simply by what we do daily. The mind operates by building and rebuilding itself according to what you do. Whether consciously or not, people build beliefs daily … based on their approaches to work. If the CFOs who count, scrimp and save money daily soon cheapskate becomes a target and that can rule out risks that would have grown the business. In response to what people do, the brain creates dendrite brain cell connectors and that’s how new neuron pathways gradually appear to guide the cheapskate.
What have you planned for today? Can you name a specific target that shows a value you hold dear, based on what you prioritize and do?
Second, targets for successful workers tend to be clearly laid out at the start of every day, through a bulleted list, and then followed and tracked regularly for progress. It’s as simply as jotting down over coffee in the morning, a list of 5 things you expect to do that day, and then checking off each item completed.
A study on targets in Success Magazine, surveyed Yale’s 1953 class concerning their targets. Only 3 per cent of this Yale class listed specific targets, for a day or for their lives. Thirteen per cent said they had targets in mind … with no need to write them out daily. The final 84 percent held no specific targets they could name… and simply let what they did define targets formed in their minds. The results?
In 1973, after 20 years, researchers revisited this same class, and discovered alarming differences between those who jotted down targets and those who did not. The 13 percent who wrote out targets … earned double the salary amount of the 84 per cent classmates with no written targets.
More alarming yet … the 3 per cent who wrote daily targets, earned at least 10 times as much as the other 97 percent of graduates combined. Targets act as both fuel and roadways to move your brain from where you stand now, to more tangible satisfaction in an area you believe. My top targets today include … do financial statements … plan a joint project between the MITA Center and a Firm in New Hampshire … take a walk to shift several priorities for the coming work week …meet with my senior VP over lunch … and, run a few small errands. “What do you have listed for your day?
» Rebound from Financial Failure in Lean Times from BrainBasedBusiness
In times of financial failure or lean markets - the locus of growth is really with you. How so? Carry critical lessons from mistakes and you’ll soon become master of your own fiscal destiny. The opposite is also true. People sink... [Read More]
Tracked on: June 10, 2008 10:55 AM | Permalink to Trackback