Achieving the End
in Mind
In recent blog posts we have been exploring the career
development process for individuals who are currently employed as well as for high
school and college students, virtually all of whom aspire to a lifetime of gainful
employment.
As shown in previous blog posts, career development is a lifelong process. This is reasonable since most people want
career success and career satisfaction to accompany them for their entire life’s
journey.
Recall from Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs that security of employment ranks close to such
basic human survival requirements as breathing, food, water and sleep! Clearly then, virtually every person will be
concerned about becoming financially self-sufficient and, unless already financially
independent, may feel anxiety about their employment future as a source of that
future self-sufficiency. And for most of
us, those powerful human concerns will motivate a serious quest for a solution
to this great challenge.
As
important as it is, this particular quest is just one of many challenges that
humans invariably face. And while we will
return to the specific quest at the heart of the career development process, we
must first take time to discuss some powerful general principles that have brought
proven success to both organizations and individuals as they set out on a quest
to achieve the end in mind.
Means and Ends
To
clarify terms, a “means” may be defined as “that by which something is done or
obtained,” while the synonyms for “end” include “accomplishment” and
“achievement.” Both of these words relate
to goals, as in the expressions “accomplishing
the goal” or “achieving the goal.”
Note,
however, that the end is not the goal—it is the achievement of the goal. Nor
is the goal the end!
Achieving
the end in mind involves making real
that which initially exists solely as words or images—thought, spoken or
written. Achieving the end in mind is
truly a matter of turning dreams into reality.
“Begin With the
End in Mind”
Stephen
Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People include Habit 2: Begin with
the End in Mind. This sage advice
has withstood the test of time and predates Covey’s particular incarnation of the
idea that parents and teachers have always tried to instill in the young: “You
must have goals.” But the idea itself is
at least as old as Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD) who famously wrote these words:
“When a man does not know what harbour he
is making for, no wind is the right wind.”
But
while having a goal is a necessary
condition for success in any quest, it is not sufficient. Action, often described
as execution, is clearly needed to
convert any goal into reality.
Alignment as
Destiny
“Organizations are perfectly aligned to
produce the results that they get.”
This organizing principle has been variously ascribed to
Stephen R. Covey or to Arthur W. Jones.
“A good definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a
different result.”
This wonderful corollary to the above organizing principle
has often been ascribed to Albert Einstein.
Taken together, these two principles provide powerful
insights into the way all organizations operate. Quite simply, if you don’t like the results
your organization is producing, you must change the internal alignment of the organization before you
can change the results. This organizational principle reveals that a
powerful cause and effect relationship exists in which
different organizational alignments
produce different organizational results.
(The same, in fact, applies to individuals
as well as organizations.)
Once organizational goals have been established—typically
through a strategic planning process—this
principle helps guide the execution
process—the path from organizational goal to organizational result.
For leaders seeking to achieve positive change for their
organizations, these two principles can be an invaluable resource. During my 20 years as Cal U president, I used
that principle to change the internal alignment in order to produce different—that
is, better—results. In my secret heart of hearts, I often saw my
primary role as the aligner in chief,
the person who was always looking at the results and, if found lacking, was the
first person to ask “What must we change in order to get better results?”
Without a commitment to excellence and a fidelity to
purpose, mission and goals, the entity—whether individual or organization—meanders,
deteriorates, floats aimlessly, and lives in peril of a serious crash.
These principles apply to individuals and organizations for the best of all possible reasons:
organizations are just groups of individuals, and the same essential principles
that apply to one also apply to the other.
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