TARGETS - U should LOVE IT, no choice to LEAVE IT!

Author: S. Faiz Ahmad, CEO, SMOT School of Business, Chennai

William Tell had been given the onerous responsibility of shooting the apple on his sons head with a cross-bow. If he had missed he would have been beheaded for manslaughter in addition to losing his son. However, by splitting the apple, he made life difficult for Man as he was showcased to prove how a target, however stiff, can be achieved if ones is good at their skill. In the management almanac he is to be etched in palladium as his feat signifies where one can be pushed to achieve anything under trying circumstances and still do it exceptionally.

Over the years, Man has indeed gone soft...in historical times he had to literally fight to be recognized - he needed to kill, plunder and loot to achieve his target for recognition. Now with much water flowing, he has become a soft target in a comfortable womb, where he is called on to use only his grey cells and not his sinews and muscles to get to the same objective.

Leaving all other matters aside we definitely need a target or a goal to make our life meaningful to complete. No person who needs food to enter his stomach, to provide him sustenance, can shun this fact.”A beggar works on a $10 target to probably have a buffet whereas Buffet works on a $1000 target of so that he can have an exclusive A La Carte”...so all live their own aspirations to make it big so the Target remains ubiquitous in their lives.

A target is not a passionate belief but should be based more on a scientific model. It needs to be governed by set principles of the environment where we first need to have a very clear mission of where we need to go. Like the fabled Alice asking where a particular road would lead when she was at the crossroad, the answer was very subtle to say - It depended on where she wanted to go. So a target for anyone is where they would desire to be in life or work.

From there they need to understand the market and its needs and position themselves likewise. If they pitch too high it would remain unattainable and too low would mean uncompetitive. So to get to the realistic target is always as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel.  A target must always be beyond the realm of a person’s capability. It should challenge him to the maximum which makes the brain work to devise a strategy to get there.

But the biggest barrier in target achievement is the sense of ownership. The commitment of a person is when he owns up his target and devises a plan to get to it. And to get to it there needs to be certain steps that he should work on:

1. Consider the target non negotiable
2. Know your product /service thoroughly
3. Understand your competitor-strengths and weakness
4. Pitch against your comparable competitor
5. Know your own customers and build a loyalty base within for repeat buying
6. From the above point we need to understand their demographics to seek the new TG 
7. Break the target into bite size nibbles. Depending on the product, a time line chart for achievement-day, week, month, quarter
8. Never discount an inquiry but consign it to a database for further reference.
9. Do not find excuses for non achievement.  At the same celebrate your achievement and talk about it openly
10. Always have a back up strategy in place and don’t trawl the same line if it doesn’t give you success

From the above it’s evident that once we take the plunge into the competitive world of Comparable Achievement, we have lost our “innocence” and inherited the world of “power play dynamics”. It’s a huge boost to ones ego and always keeps those involved fully charged.

But in the modern world, targets have meant undiluted stress. And to accentuate the problem, when economies pass through troubled times, the expectations reach gargantuan heights to keep the business running and more often than not, human resource are the first line of expendables  to  be ejected out for non performance.

Marriages fail, health fails, self esteem falls and business fails. It may always look like a no - go in tough situations for the weak heart but for the brave heart the worst times are the best times. While others have accepted the defeat, actually the real potential exists in prizing out and preying on man’s insatiable needs which remains latent at all times. 

And finally whatever may be ones blood group—with targets it’s always........B+