Goals Schmoles!

No Problem? No Goal.

     If you can’t define your problem, clearly, in writing, in one sentence, you don’t have a goal. Early on in my career, I had one of those experiences that leave neophytes like I was at that time reeling in anguish and boredom, only to learn eventually that I had been a witness to business management greatness.

     I was working for the world’s number one Madison Avenue advertising agency and I was a “creative management team member” assigned to handle the marketing for a Fortune 500 company, one of the planet’s greatest airlines. The boredom set in after being locked (literally) in a fancy Manhattan hotel suite with the six top executives of the airline and the top creative and management team members of the ad agency for four 12-hour workdays and four 3-4 hour worknights, where we ate, drank and slept the airline business.

     The purpose of the marathon session was “to define the problem” that the airline had that we could wrap a major marketing campaign around. The airline chief required that we sort through reports from every department in every worldwide division and review all the problems, from late baggage delivery to delayed flights to food service complaints to air traffic control issues, and on and on.

     It was so much more than I ever wanted to know, and all I could think about was getting home to my family, and eating something besides subs and pizza. But guess what? The problem got defined. The boss insisted that it be written down as a single sentence and that everyone in the room had to accept the wording exactly. I probably don’t need to tell you I thought he was nuts, and that I was seriously thinking about tuning up my resume.

     The end result was that the problem got flipped over into a goal statement that was specific, flexible, realistic and had a due date. We all left exhausted. We worked with the goal statement. We achieved the goal with what turned out to be one of the most productive advertising and sales campaigns in history. In other words the torture produced.

     I’ve repeated the dynamics hundreds of times since over the years. It always works! Always. Define the problem. Be specific and put it in writing and get all involved to agree at least somewhat with the statement. Then rework the statement into a goal and go for it. Crazy extra nonsense work. Crazy? Maybe. Extra? Positively. Nonsense? I don’t think so anymore. Work? Yes it’s very hard work. But it also DOES work. And that makes it about as close to a sure bet as you’ll ever get in business! 

 Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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