{"id":82,"date":"2010-06-29T10:20:06","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T09:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/?p=82"},"modified":"2024-10-15T16:46:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T15:46:10","slug":"making-your-aims-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/06\/making-your-aims-clear\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Your Aims Clear"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes : <\/span><\/span>

\"DukeMaking Your Aims Clear in Your Small Business<\/h1>\n

As business people we all have aims, both long term and more immediate, but how many of us that employ staff make our aims clear to\u00a0 our managers, supervisors and staff ?<\/p>\n

Do your staff spend hours on non-essential work because they think that it’s important – how much of this work is really useful to you as a business owner and how much of the work being done is because you haven’t told your staff clearly what your aims are.<\/a><\/p>\n

This is not an uncommon or new problem though, below is a letter apparently written by the Duke of Wellington in 1812 in the middle of the war with Napoleon. \u00a0I have no provenance for this. Wellington was renowned for his dislike of government interference in military matters, however.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is a timeless example of how people need to know what their aims are and the need to not have to account for matters that are not that important.<\/p>\n

\n
Gentlemen,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to our headquarters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty\u2019s Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains\u00a0unaccounted\u00a0for in one infantry battalion\u2019s petty cash and there has been a hideous\u00a0confusion as to the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry\u00a0regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. \u00a0This reprehensible\u00a0carelessness\u00a0may be related to the pressure of circumstance, since we are war with\u00a0France,\u00a0a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request\u00a0elucidation of\u00a0my instructions from His Majesty\u2019s Government so that I may better\u00a0understand\u00a0why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. \u00a0I construe that\u00a0perforce it\u00a0must be one of two alternative duties, as given below.
\nI shall pursue\u00a0either\u00a0one with the best of my ability, but I cannot do both:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the\u00a0benefit\u00a0of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.<\/div>\n
\u2013 Duke of Wellington, to the British Foreign Office,\u00a0London, 1812<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So you see, everyone can fall into the trap of not knowing what their aims are, even great military leaders.<\/div>\n
I hope that the letter made you smile, but I hope even more that it made you think about making sure that your aims and the aims of your business are clearly understood, and that you might even think about some of the processes and work carried out on a day-to-day basis and check to see if it is really needed.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes : <\/span><\/span>Making Your Aims Clear in Your Small Business As business people we all have aims, both long term and more immediate, but how many of us that employ staff make our aims clear to\u00a0 our managers, supervisors and staff ? Do your staff spend hours on non-essential work because they think that it’s important – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-advice","tag-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}