It’s important to set goals, but it’s equally important to communicate those goals to every member of your team.
That’s the main message that Tim Jackson will be delivering to a Chamber Young Professionals event organized by the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce Jan. 27.
Jackson is one of the founders of Tech Capital Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in fledgling technology companies in Waterloo Region. He’s slated to speak about goal setting, how he does his yearly planning and how it has helped his success.
Jackson noted that it’s important to set goals to give yourself a meter to measure success by.
“If you just let things happen as they happen, you really don’t have a measure of whether you got where you expected to be or not.”
Setting firm goals also allows you to share your vision with others and ensure that everyone is one the same page.
Having served on the boards of a number of technology companies and not-for-profits, he stresses that it’s equally important to communicate – and over-communicate – to the other people involved.
“You can’t just ask people to do something or say ‘this is the goal or the objective,’ you’ve got to go the next step and explain why that’s important.”
He cites an example from a company that was often rushing to get orders out on the last day of the quarter to meet financial targets for investors.
“Instead of just saying to our receptionist – who was responsible for shipping and customs – you need to stay late tonight because this has got to get out the door, she understood what promises we’d made to our investors. So what the goal was for the quarter, but more importantly she understood what impact that had on stocks she owned in the company and her stock options.
“Why is the objective to grow sales by 20 per cent this year, or why is the objective to increase volunteer hours by 15 per cent? Having a number for the sake of having a number doesn’t do anything, but it’s the why that’s important.”
Jackson chairs the boards of the Waterloo Public Library and Centre in the Square and is president of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. A graduate of the University of Waterloo, he also sits on the university’s board of governors and works with the Research and Technology Park.
The goal for Tech Capital Partners is to build world-class companies in Waterloo Region and make the region the best place in the world to live for people of all ages, he said.
The region’s technology industry has emerged from the economic downturn better than any other in the country, mostly due to its diversity. Jackson points to companies working in hardware, software, wireless technologies and medical imaging, among others.
In fact, his firm is seeing an increase in entrepreneurship, as people who lost their jobs look to self-employment as an alternative.
“We are seeing lots and lots of opportunities to finance companies. The entrepreneurial bug is out there.”
The Chamber Young Professionals event takes place Jan. 27 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Best Western St. Jacobs Country Inn.
