From Dreams to Reality

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.