I really like this blog.   It’s got the best readers and comments on the web.  So when Chris told me I should go ahead and submit a new post, I was totally game.  In the interest of full disclosure, I’m out and about a little more than usual today because my new book, Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success, has just been released.

But back to the task at hand: goals. Well-defined goals can be the difference between success and mediocrity. But goal setting does have a dark side. The large-scale financial disasters of 2008 were in large part due to executives who blindly set and followed goals without paying attention to developments around them that should have prompted them to stop and think.

Sometimes, setting a goal works so well that we become irrational and unethical in our attempts to achieve it.

A classic example is the top-notch student who cheats on tests and plagiarizes term papers in order to maintain her straight-A average. In 1999, psychology researchers Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons set out to investigate the phenomenon that goals can have a negative effect on performance.

They told subjects to watch a video and count how many times the people in the clip passed a basketball among themselves. The subjects concentrated so intently on the goal that they failed to notice anything else taking place in the testing room – including when a woman in a gorilla suit took her place among the group!

The bottom line? You’ll get an edge by setting goals for sure, just be aware of the potential pitfalls.

Success won’t happen overnight, so you need a series of long-term goals in order to get to where you’re meant to be. I generally advise on gaining an edge in the workplace, but your aspirations might include artistic, family, financial, physical, and public service goals.

Spend some time thinking about the areas that are most important to you, and keep working until you have just a handful of goals to concentrate on.

Please make sure these significant goals are truly your own, and not your partner’s, family’s, or employer’s. The motivation to achieve won’t be very strong or last very long if it’s driven by someone else. Once you have your short list, use your goals to gain an edge by answering these questions:

• What exactly are you going to do, when, and how? For instance, it is better to say that you will attend three sales meetings this month than simply to remark that you plan to increase your knowledge of sales. Make sure you phrase the goal positively (i.e. not “Sacrifice my weekends to attend sales meetings,” but “Make good use of my Saturdays this winter to master the mechanics of the sales process by March.”)

• How should you determine if you have achieved your goal? How will you tell if you’ve made progress along the way? For example, you might say: “I will know that I am making progress toward my goal when I am able to complete the meeting exercises the other sales reps are responsible for.”

• Is your goal something that you can realistically achieve in steps? While there should be a challenge inherent to the goal, you don’t want the task to be so large or difficult that it destroys your motivation. Also, you don’t want your success to be based on factors that are out of your control (i.e. the economy, the weather, fate).

• Why is this goal important to your long-term success in this area? Will completion of the goal actually bring you closer to getting what you consider to be truly important in life?

• When are you going to start working on achieving your goal, and what is the deadline for completion? At what point should you stop and revisit your goal to make sure it’s still a worthy exercise?

Did you write down your answers? Don’t be lazy, because writing is half the battle. For even more of an impact, turn the page and jot down some notes on your own strengths and weaknesses, obstacles you’re likely to encounter, sacrifices you may have to make, knowledge you may need to acquire, and the people who can support you as you work to achieve your goals.

Make your action plans for each goal short-term so that goals don’t fall off the radar while you’re coping with your boss’ latest meltdown.

Immediate to do lists are a great idea, but don’t let your Sharpie get too excited. Too many tasks on a checklist will either spread your attention too thin or cause you to feel so overwhelmed that you won’t do anything.

Remember that no one experiences overnight success, so you’ll need to be patient and focused. Periodically review your goals to ensure that you’re on the right track and to determine if they need adjusting. And when you achieve a goal, don’t just nod and smile and move on to the next big thing. It’s important for your self-confidence and motivation that you celebrate the accomplishment and reward yourself for your hard work and dedication. Analyze what the experience taught you and what that means for future goal setting.

Overnight success is a myth, and so are many other things that sabotage your career even as you accept them as conventional wisdom.  Stop the cycle.  Grab your copy of Blind Spots, available everywhere books are sold.

The old proverb professes that you may win the battles along the way but still lose the war.

If so, I have failed miserably.  I lost the war.  My white flag is up.

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, I met a really dynamic individual.  This person was funny, smart and someone that you could tell was just special.  An immediate friendship formed and soon this person trusted me with all sorts of information about some very serious stuff that was going on in their life.

It wasn’t a total surprise that a near stranger trusted me or wanted my input.  I get approached by friends and strangers alike constantly for advice- in my office, in the supermarket, even in airport bathrooms (as can be attested to by Liz Strauss on a recent trip to Detroit).  But this person really needed me in a pretty urgent way.

The good news is that I won many battles.  I can’t discuss specifics because I don’t want to breach any trust, but many positive changes were made that anyone in their right mind would acknowledge were major.  However, my sights were grander.  I saw huge, amazing goals- so much that this person could become- but they were unwilling to put towards the effort to go all of the way and decided to stay mired in excuses, circumstances, blame and more.  I lost the war.  And I had to surrender.

So, do the small victories count?  In my writings, I usually provide the advice, but in this case, I don’t feel like I have the answer.  Do we all fail because we lost the war, or can we celebrate the small victories along the way?

It’s not the first time the war has been lost alongside small victories that seem worthy of recognition.  I have had people that I have had to let go from my organization write to tell me that something that I taught them they have now passed on to someone else.  Or others who fell short of their big plans but still moved ahead in the right direction.   Do these count even if the intended outcome isn’t reached?

And why even invest the time, effort and emotion?  Part of it is admittedly selfish.  In the case of the people working for me, I want them to do a good job to make my clients happy and to make my life easier.  And part of me just gets frustrated when I see people not living up to their full potential and I jump in to ease my own annoyance with mediocrity.  But part of me does it because I truly want to help people- for their own benefit alone- to succeed and be everything they can be and want to be.

So, I will probably prepare to do battle one day again soon.  And I may in fact lose, but hope that my efforts and smaller victories count for something.  And who knows, one day I might even emerge victorious.

Been There … Sucked at It

It’s true, if you want to build a business you can’t get there without a network of people who know you and know what you can do. But for most of us, building a powerful network isn’t natural and they don’t teach it in school. In fact, it’s probably a truth that every one of us has had an experience of being the odd man out in a group. That memory can get in the way of making the connections we need to move forward and up, to find the people who love what we do.

I know I’ve been there and sucked the whole networking thing too.

Ah the memory not knowing what to do wasn’t nearly as bad as the feeling of that the whole room knew I was a lose who didn’t know how to “work” the room. I had too much “self” and not enough “conscious” in my self-consciousness.

What would happen if I changed my point of view. What if I dropped the “self” and just took the consciousness into the room?

Whether it’s a business dinner, a networking event, or a conference where the only one you know going in is you, these steps will help you bring your best consciousness into the room and get your mind off people looking at you.

1. Do your homework. Before the event, know something about the event and group. Find out who started the gathering, what the event is meant to do, and what kind of people keep it going. You may find they have a lot in common with you. You also may find that this isn’t the right event for you.
2. Dress for respect and to connect. We trust first the people who share our values. Dress as your best self in a ways that’s in tune with the group. Give them a chance to recognize you as someone who might “get” who they are. Save your wild lime green spandex for the events with the folks who know you or the events where spandex is on whole crew.
3. Be a learner. Everyone loves to share share what they know. If you’re there to make business connections, bring an idea or question that will capture people’s attention. Invite them to offer ideas and suggestions. When people ask what you do, you might mention your business and then turn the conversation back by saying that you’re learning how to network with more confidence, do they have any advice for you?
4. If you’re alone, walk up to a group. When two people are talking, it’s interrupting to try to join. But a group always has people at various levels of attention to the conversation. Find the least interested person in the group and approach with a question, “Mind if I join in? This group looks interesting.”
5. Be curious. Make everything you say about the other people in the room. A wise man once told me “If you’re worried about people looking at you, look at them.” What he meant was to quit thinking about myself and focus on everyone else. Get curious about the people in the room. Make it your quest to know who they are, even if they never find out a thing about you.

Everyone likes an intelligent, interested person who gives us true attention.
We all like people who ask meaningful questions and listen to how we answer them.
I learned that being that person makes walking into a room of strangers easier to do.

So arm yourself with a question that means something to you and to the people in the room. And see how the experience changes when you take the self out of self-conscious and become truly conscious of the people in that room.

How to stand out in a crowded marketplace

I have been asked more and more often about how entrepreneurs and businesses can stand out in a crowded marketplace, and I keep pointing to what has worked for me- the WTF Factor.

The WTF Factor is simply something that makes people stop and go “What the F….?”  It works because there is so much information, products and services out there, that even strong offerings sometimes don’t get noticed, just because of the noise.

The WTF Factor makes people stop and take notice.  Their initial reaction may not be positive, but if you have the credibility to back up your offering, you have at least gotten over the initial hurdle of getting someone’s attention.

I used this strategy for the cover of my upcoming book, The Entrepreneur Equation (yes, now on Amazon.com for pre-order- this commercial was brought to you by the letter “E” and the number “2”).  Some people loved it and some people (including my publisher’s sales team) initially hated it because I didn’t “look like a business author” and that it didn’t look like a “traditional business book” (my response to that can be read here…).  But what I realized was that that was awesome- because it would make people in the bookstores stop and go “WTF?!”  Then, when they picked it up, read the amazing endorsements, the compelling Foreword by Michael Port and my biography, they would be hooked. But if I didn’t have that WTF Factor- if the book looked like every other cover- they might not even stop to take a closer look.

To make the WTF Factor work, it has to be true to who you are and you have to have credibility behind it, or else it appears obnoxious and gimmicky.  It also needs to be unusual relative to the expectations of the customer.  That doesn’t always mean being over the top, provocative or crazy; it could mean being stoic, quiet or something else entirely- as long as it is unexpected in its context.  This could be an unexpected blog headline, product name, packaging- whatever it is that makes people stop for just a second, which is not an easy feat today.

Don’t worry so much about whether someone likes or dislikes what you are doing; just make sure they won’t ignore it!

This is my first post on Escape Velocity, and I’m thrilled to be here.   Why?  Because I am in such good company.  The other writers on this blog are people I have worked with and respected for years, and to have my writing published alongside theirs is an honor.

It has occurred to me that a lot of the activities I choose to engage in as part of my independent career and workplace consulting business are motivated by the desire to be in good company.   Participation in this blog is just one example.  Another is the Business Roundtable Springboard Project committee I was asked to join last year.

The purpose of the committee was to advise the US Department of Labor on strategies for increasing the effectiveness and competitiveness of American college graduates hitting the workforce.   As a member, I would have the opportunity to share my views on this subject alongside those of Fortune 500 CEOs and well-known political leaders.  There was no question that I would say yes.

Being in such good company allowed me to learn at an accelerated pace, and it also enhanced my professional profile and reputation.  I also quickly recognized that being among such talented and influential individuals would allow me to do important work more quickly and efficiently.  Case in point:  The Springboard Project’s first deliverable, JobSTART 101, a free, 90 minute online course dedicated to providing college students and recent graduates with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in the workplace, was conceived in late 2009 and launched this week, not even a year later.

Whether you work in an established organization or are building your own business, placing yourself in good company is one of the smartest moves you can make.  It may not pay off immediately, but if you add as much value as you can and are patient, the people with whom you develop relationships can take you to heights you never dreamed.

I shot a quick video to talk about how we might improve our use of voicemail. Solid communication is imperative to how you grow your abilities to escape. I’m curious as to your take on this one.

How does that stack up with what you’re doing?