Recently I spoke at a team day for one of the big 4 professional services firms. The business plan which was presented showed ambitious growth targets for the year ahead and the team had already got off to a great start. When it came to my ‘slot’ the first point in my message was that ambitious goals require ambitious relationships. At the end of the day I laid down the 5×5 challenge – in the next 5 days reach out ambitiously to 5 people who could game change their business.
Goals are essential for success. If you aim at nothing you will probably hit it. When I take time to consider my goals one of the questions I ask myself is ‘If I couldn’t fail what would I do?’.
SMART goals are standard good practice however under normal interpretation of the acronym there is no difference between the A for Achievable and the R for Realistic. This has always irritated me. So in true Relationology style I’ve reframed things relationally whereby the R reminds us that we should set Relational goals:
So in the context of relationship management success either start with the relationships in your portfolio and ask what goal you want to achieve with each person. Or you can start with your goals and ask what relationships do you need to build into your portfolio in order to fulfil your ambition. Whichever approach Relationology believes that relationships and goals belong to each other like a hand in a glove, hence the power of setting and working towards Relational Goals.
Relationship Management Success Question: What are your relational goals for the next quarter?
