Why Defining And Agreeing on Direction is Soooooo Important

February 13, 2013 by Taylor Studios in Professional & Industry Tips

Whether it is a mission, central theme, goals or strategic objectives; defining what you want to accomplish is critical to achieving anything. If you don’t know where you want to go how are you going to get there? The first step any group needs to develop is what success looks like and all agree they will work towards that.

Recently, I have reminded several boards, clients and colleagues of the importance of this. Many were surprised that they had forgotten along the way and it provided clarity to the decision of the moment. It is important that this agreed upon direction is prominent and repeated in any group that is attempting to accomplish a goal.

Many groups get off track as time goes by and the actions they take do not move them closer to their mission. We establish the success factors with clients during our initial meetings. We often ask what would make you deliriously happy if achieved. These success factors are then reviewed at future meetings and printed in each submittal to a client as a reminder. This keeps the group from going off target with new ideas that do not meet the original objectives.

I recently joined the board of the . The organization promotes responsible horse ownership and more interaction with horses. It puts on a every year. This year’s theme for the fair is: Horses Through History – Past, Present and Future. We were asked if we should get a Lincoln impersonator to walk around the show. When I asked how does this meet our mission it became clear that it didn’t. It’s unlikely any Lincoln impersonator we found would also be an expert on Lincoln’s horses.

A client recently talked about how their board and programming committee was wandering off the central theme of the museum. Many wanted to add a lot more content than was originally agreed upon. I asked how this was good for the visitor and the mission? It wasn’t. Sometimes self-interest can cause groups to add things irrelevant to overriding vision that they want to achieve. This can really stall progress and success.

Remember your mission daily and you are more likely to achieve it.