Use ‘circle of influence’ to reach business goals

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Your career. Are you where you planned to be?

Or, maybe another way to ask it: Do you even have a plan?

If you don’t have a plan on where you want to be down the line then I suggest you begin formulating one because it makes you accountable to yourself and helps you focus.

The exercise is not difficult. You can approach it by using a timeline or by title (or job description) or by compensation. The idea is to start with where you are and then (if using a timeline) use increments of, say, five years and spell out what you’re your next goal is. Then look at another five years and so on.

This little exercise is not designed to be done once and put away in a draw to be forgotten. The idea is to review it monthly. If you have a five-year goal to get you to the next level, you’ll have tasks to do to get there.

If you are in a line position and want to become management there will be skills sets you will need to obtain (or as I refer to them, “tools for your tool box”). Some of those skills will include goal setting, managing people, setting sales or production targets, developing metrics to chart the department’s progress, giving effective evaluations of subordinates, etc. Once you have identified the tools you need, then you can go about acquiring those skills.

Each time you gain a skill set, check it off and you will begin to see your progress.

Some nontraditional skill sets are just as important, but not as readily understood. 

One of those is increasing your circle of influence. Think of a dot at the center of a piece of paper and then begin to draw a spiral outward until the exercise takes you off the page. Now put random dots along the circles.

Each one of those dots is someone you have done something for who is now in your circle of influence. Those people will be more than willing to support your efforts. The key is to know when a circle-of-influence opportunity presents itself.