Importance of Goal setting
In the first class of POM, I was expecting it
to be more formal and less interactive; however Dr. Mandi had something
different in his mind. He is one professor who is enthusiastic, energetic and
intends to do things differently. He introduced few concepts like “AAJ KI ROTI
AAJ KAMANA HAI” and “SOCHO BECHO,BECHO SEKHO, SEEKHO SOCHO” , though the
slogans seems to be simple but they have a psychological effect on the
individual.
It has helped me to answer the question: What after MBA?
An individual having a MBA degree has mainly two options in
front of him namely:
1. Entrepreneur
2. Manager
An
entrepreneur is a person who is motivated to satisfy a high need for
achievement in innovative and creative activities. He is a great motivator to
start his new business and manage it successively. He is the investor and takes
risk in the enterprise. He perceives and exploits opportunity and works for his
satisfaction to get positive results, whereas a manager (Professional Manager)
takes care of the general functions of running an organisation such as
strategic planning, operation planning, organising the resources, staffing,
coordination, motivation and controlling work of the organisation.
Normally a professional manager acquires such knowledge
through formal education and training. He has to work within the policy
framework set by the entrepreneurs (owners) of the organisation.
The answer to this question depends on the mindset of each
individual. He can choose any one of the above mentioned options.
Now if a person selects option 1, another question which
comes to my mind is why not to start your company while studying management?
I feel it is a good time to start your company while
studying as you can transform your knowledge into practical implementation.
Management course is of no use until you apply it in real life situations.The
risk factor is also less as you have a big bunch of students and faculty
members who can help you in different aspects of entrepreneurship.
My understanding is:
Start following your dreams, before someone hires you to
fulfill his dreams.
How to
set Effective Goals?
Tower Building Exercise:
In this
task the students were asked to set the goal for tower height which we feel we
can build of multiple small cubes.
The intricate
part was that there will be a team of 3, out of them 1 will build the tower
using his odd hand and also blind folded, and the other two will help him to
build the tower.
This
activity allowed us to set SMART goals and most of the people set the target in
between 12-20 cubes.
Hence the
final target set by the 3 students was 15.
From the
activity points worth mentioning are:
1. The goal set by them was based on
SMART goals concept as Dr. Mandi stated the last year’s tower height which was
17.
2. The role of employee or the student
who was building the tower was to stay focused and concentrate on his
activities, on the other hand the role of the managers or the student guiding
was to keep motivating him.
3. The strategies to build the tower
were decided by the managers and employee was asked to follow it.
For
eg: As the manager found out that his hand starts paining while it is in the
air, so he asked the employee to drag the cube along the table.
4. Finally the task in hand was
completed successfully and they were able to achieve more than the target set
by them. It shows that impossible is nothing if your goals are well defined.
What is the importance of goal setting?
1. First, imagine that you live your
life without purposes. How will you live your life? You will be ordinary, thus,
you will live a mediocre life. If you don’t have a goal today, you’re just like
a lost sheep and you are dangling in nowhere. You wake up every day without
purposes or reasons. You live your life meaningless and you will waste your life.
However, with a clear and specific goal, it will serve as a clear destination
for where you are heading, giving your purpose to live on.
2. The second importance of goal
setting is that it will help you to stay focused in getting what you want in
your life. Many people know what they want to achieve but they just don’t do
something to make their dreams come true. However, with a clear goal in your
mind, you will remind yourself of what you want to achieve in your life and
hence, it will direct you in the right direction. This is why successful people
are able to achieve what they want lightning fast, because they are focused.
3. The third importance of goal setting
is that; it will help you to overcome procrastination. By writing down what you
want to achieve, you are actually putting commitment into making it comes true.
The real key in doing this is to keep reminding yourself about what you want in
your life. You want to sink the idea of achieving your goals into your
subconscious mind so that you will motivate yourself into taking massive amount
of action all the time.
4. The fourth importance is that you
can have a self-evaluation at the end of your task. Many companies have made it
a mandate for the employees to have goal setting at the start of the year and
based on that the companies will be able to evaluate the performance of the
employee.
