Different organizations use different formats for monitoring and reporting progress against these goals
Here is a format, I have used successfully in my professional and personal life. the examples stated are for our professional life, but the same are very much applicable for our personal life as well
The Basis
Even though the objectives are for individuals, others do play a positive or negative role for our success or failure, affecting our performance. You can only succeed with the help, interest and support of others, and this requires the ability to form business and personal relationships
In a professionally managed organizations, such realities are very much recognised and they do have processes to address these, on a continuous basis
The 'One Page Report' is a simple tool - to raise the bar as well as to do timely course corrections, when things are going off-target
The Format
Divide one page into four quadrants - the top half to list SAP performances and the bottom half to list BP performances
And the right half is for self and the left half is for others - who may be internal or external to the organization
One need not report OP performances - this is very important, as the core objective is to keep improving on our plans
thus the format is as below:
Top Left:- SAP performance by Others
List 3 to 5 key significantly above plan performances by others
Others may be from your department / organization or external to your organization
Top Right:- SAP performance by Self
List about 3 to 5 significantly above performances by Self
If you have helped others' succeed, list them here [and ensure that others list in their reports as well]
This approach would help you to become an individual performer as well as a team player
Bottom Right:- BP performance by Self
Be honest in reporting Below Plan performance [professional organizations expect every one to report realities, so that the problems can be addressed]
With International experience, you will realize that customers from abroad want you to highlight shortcomings without fail and in time
Here again list 3 to 5 key below plan performances by self
Bottom Left:- BP performance by Others
There are many real life situations, wherein you need to wait for completion by others - like in Government Approvals etc.
Here again, list 3 to 5 below plan performances by others
The Strategy to Improve Performance
The Strategy is to keep closing issues and keep pushing the items from bottom half to top half
In real life, professional or personal, individual as well as team performances are important for collective winning. I have found it to be an useful and effective tool, in achieving these
Use it in your personal life
- Look at yourself as a student, youngster or aged, simply as an individual and list down your goals
- For you to achieve your goals, list down others who could play a positive or negative role for you to achieve your goals
- Discuss with others to play facilitating role and make them part of your success
- Focus on / list only critical things and make the list manageable - the objective is to succeed
- Using similar approach for your personal life, would make you a better performer in professional life as well
I have personally tried, rather I use it regularly in my professional and personal life, experienced tremendous success
Copyright © 2006 Ganesh Srinivasan. All International Rights Reserved.
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