Unachievable Goals

 

Lessons from Bruce: Part One

(My fifth book will be hitting store shelves in March and this series of notes draws on some of the key business insights in that text. Six Tires, No Plan is the biography of Bruce Halle, who founded a commodity business (Discount Tire Company) in a saturated market and ended up 96th on the Forbes 400 list. The lessons Halle learned on the way to the top offer important insights—and questions—for the rest of us.)

What do we want? More. When do we want it? By the end of the next budget year.

Of course, asking for more isn’t always the way to actually get more from employees. In building Discount Tire Company, founder Bruce Halle learned that it’s possible to get more by asking for less. Not by asking for a decline, of course, but by avoiding the temptation to set unachievable goals and hoping to get close to the target.

The challenge with most misdirected goals, Halle learned, is that people recognize early that they won’t be able to reach them. Discouraged, many managers simply stop trying. After all, if failure is nearly guaranteed, why bother at all? Worse, if the goals themselves make managers feel like failures, how will they energize the people who work for them?

Halle figured out that it’s possible to get better results by setting the bar lower, giving managers goals they can reach and exceed. If managers have the right work ethic, they’ll be energized by success and determined to build on their gains. As they get closer to the target, their enthusiasm grows, which builds the momentum to exceed the goals.

Ultimately, it seems, goal achievement is more a matter of enthusiasm than milestones. When it comes to budgeting for growth, less can yield more—and vice versa.

About Michael Rosenbaum

Rosenbaum

Quadrant Five founder Michael Rosenbaum has walked the walk when it comes to building a business, so he can be a confidant and compatriot—not just an advisor—for clients. Rosenbaum worked his way up to president of a $35 million company with 300 people and 600 clients. Along the way, he managed operations, HR, IT, and marketing, and advised CEOS and CFOs at more than 200 companies.

Beginning as a newspaper reporter, he developed a specialization in business journalism and earned an MBA on his way to a 30-year consulting career. Representing both angel-backed startups and Fortune 100 giants, Rosenbaum identified the patterns and processes that drive success across a wide range of industries and business cycles.

He is well regarded for designing each performance-improvement process around specific client needs, capabilities, and culture, rather than pushing a pre-fab set of rules for clients to follow. He brings a unique set of skills to each engagement, including experiences as a company president, financial journalist, marketer, IR advisor, non-profit founder, author, and public speaker. Items of note include:

• Received the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland in 2015 for non-profit work
• Honored for the Best Business Biography of 2012 for his fifth book, Six Tires, No Plan
• Frequent speaker on customer relationship value
• Sales instructor for Certified Value Growth Advisor certification program.
• Regional Communications Chair, YPO Gold
• Marketing Chair, AMAA’s Mid-Market Alliance
• Former Chicago Chapter Chair, National Association of Corporate Directors

Recent Blog Posts

  • Business Insights from 2016 Campaigns

     

    The 2016 U.S. election provides critical lessons for business leaders, and none of those lessons involves public policy issues or candidate…

    Read more

  • CSI Fargo

     

    The fake accounts scandal at Wells Fargo offers a stark warning for pretty much every business owner. Heed the lessons of this fiasco or you…

    Read more

  • Customer (Dis)Service

    Once again, Apple has updated the software for my IPhone and, once again, they’ve given me a bunch of stuff that I don’t want, don’t need, and a…

    Read more

  • Tell Me Where It DOESN’T Hurt

     

    You get to be a certain age and at least one of your friends ends up with a pinched nerve. Often, though, they “feel” the pain somewhere…

    Read more

  • HOW DID WE GET HERE?

     

    We’ve been asked to engage in more discussions of innovation lately, especially as it relates to cost-effective ways to improve performanc…

    Read more