Goals Archives - Succeed Sooner

Personal Goals – My 2020 Strategy

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020 by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments

The new year is upon us and for those that know me or have read some of my year end posts over the years you know I like to use this time to set some personal goals. I am not a believer in New Years Resolutions, but I do think it is a great time of year to reflect and plan for the year to come. (more…)...

Leading to Outcomes

September 1, 2016March 20, 2023 by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments

One of the more successful strategies I have seen managers take in their organizations has been shifting their focus from managing the process to leading to outcomes. In the age of employee empowerment, one of the best ways to allow your team to feel like they have a say in the work is to allow them some flexibility in the process and approach. As long as they deliver the desired outcome, they should be able to define the path. The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt I would suggest that the act of simply managing for outcomes isn't enough in the current corporate environment. Setting goals and offering flexibility in the approach by Leading to Outcomes is a far more effective approach. If you retain the concept of managing in the approach, you won't achieve the...

Keep Your Head In The Game

August 2, 2013July 6, 2016 by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments

I've taken a bit of a hiatus from writing over the past couple months because I felt I really needed to refocus myself a little bit and give myself the time and space to step up from the weeds of life and career and get some perspective on how I want to frame my future. I found myself not feeling like I was progressing myself internally in a meaningful way, and I was reminded of one of my favourite quotes: It’s only when you drop yesterday’s assumptions that you can glimpse tomorrow’s patterns and possibilities. To see deeper, unsee first. – Umair Haq (more…)...

New Year Goal Setting

January 14, 2013 by Tim Empringham, MBA1 Comment

While I don't necessarily subscribe to the concept of New Years resolutions, I do believe that the New Year provides us with a good annual marker to check in on how we are doing against our personal roadmap and validate that our goals are still relevant and aligned to where we want to go. It's an exercise that actually should be done more frequently (quarterly for example), but as we get into the year and the business of life takes hold again I recognize that many of us forget to check back in with our goals as regularly as we should. Maybe that should be goal #1 on all of our lists this year. So what should our annual goal setting and check in session look like? First, if you have done this exercise before you should pull out the previous version of your personal plan and spend some time reviewing it. Reflect on your 5, 10, and 20 year targets to validate...

Shooting Arrows at the Moon

September 18, 2012 by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments

About a week ago stories started surfacing about the possibility of resurrecting the Avro Arrow as a potential replacement for the troubled F-35 Stealth Fighter purchase for the Royal Canadian Air Force. For those who don't share my adoration for the Arrow (otherwise known as the CF-105) I'll provide a brief summary of its short life as the world's most advanced fighter jet. In 1952 the RCAF submitted the Final Report of the All-Weather Interceptor Requirements Team to Avro Canada - an aircraft manufacturing company located in Malton, Ontario. In it they outlined the features that would be required to protect against the threat of jet powered high altitude Soviet bombers capable of dropping nuclear weapons on North American targets. The resulting design achieved what was considered to be impossible at the time with test flights starting in March 1958. Through the pilot and test process the aircraft achieved a top speed of Mach 1.98 (although that was not the limit of...

The Power of Radical Goals

March 8, 2012October 20, 2019 by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments

How do you set goals in your organization today? Surely by now we all define our goals according to the guidelines of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely), so everythings great right? What if I told you that SMART goals are self-limiting? What if I told you that if you insist on defining SMART goals that your business will not achieve its potential and is at risk of being disrupted? Heresy right? Let me explain. Under conventional wisdom, we spend lots of time defining goals that we believe are 'stretch' goals, but that we are certain are attainable if our team achieves their potential. We define specific measures, set the bar at what seems like realistic and attainable heights (but just far out enough as to require us to perform at a high level to attain them), and then we set our team free to deliver on those goals. Think of the types of goals you set for your teams today: achieve year-over-year sales growth of 10%;...