What are the best practices for helping clients achieve their goals? (2024)

Alignment of goal is very important aspect while working with client on a project. Listening actively and emphatically helps to understand the client well.

The greatest leaders I have worked with are those who enable success of the team. They manage any dysfunction in, around or above the team. They avoid micromanaging. Instead, they make sure that every individual in the team has what they need to perform. They set out collective visions and objectives that unite the team and they celebrate effort equally with achievement.

You need to "fall in love" with you client, in a genuinely and authentic way so you get as close as you can to get your soul in their game. You need to be able to feel how they do and understand how they need to be helped; sometimes is not obvious and sometimes is just not possible.

This assumes that they know themselves well enough to understand their motivations, challenges and needs, and that they have aspirations that are relevant to the business.You may need to start the communication a little earlier in the process.

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I completely agree with this, often times I have found organizations not having a baseline understanding of collaborative working relationship with clients to achieve common goal, the reason for this is not understanding the needs of the client. The planning stages of any project should focus on getting to know your client, their needs and their challenges. I have also seen that some organizations approach clients only based on a contractual agreement on paper, this is important but not the core of delivering the services. To make things work, first get to know your client and establish a good working relationship so that both parties can be flexible enough to reach solutions as project progresses towards completion.

It’s important to set ambitious, yet realistic, short-term goals as you pursue your long-term interests. Remember, small wins provide momentum while long-term goals enable you to win big.Establish a clear goal. Before beginning any task, ask yourself, “Is this activity instrumental to achieving my goal?” That’s because random activities can be wasteful or even work at cross-purposes with each other. Remember, when tasks work in concert, progress is compounded.Walk before you run. Success is a game of inches. When you do something well day in and day out, the cumulative impact is huge. As Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”

An organisation should have an agreed Vision & Mission statement which should reflect the organisations reason of existence. This should be initiated from the top by sharing his/her vision for the organisation & reason of existence. These statements do not change,however unless the business model changes drastically it should not be reviewed. Setting SMART goals it is imperative that top man is involved, the first set of goals come from his/her office. These stem from the Vision and Mission statement. Other departments than develop their goals in support of the executive goals. These should be reviewed for monitoring progress periodically. Goal achievement is also made a part of yearly appraisal.Consultants can definitely play a role.

The SMART framework refines vague goals into clear, actionable steps, grounding aspirations in reality. By breaking goals into measurable components, clients feel more empowered and less overwhelmed. Each step's success fuels motivation towards the overarching objective, bridging the gap between aspiration and realization.

When clients craft goals following this framework, it provides a clear roadmap for success. By guiding clients through the SMART goal-setting process, you empower them to be more strategic, focused, and accountable in their pursuits. It’s a proactive way to turn aspirations into attainable achievements.

While SMART Goals are good for transactional aspects of life, one needs to identify similar SMART Indicators for behavioural and attitudinal changes and transformations - and while these may often not be "measurable", they need to be regularly "assessed" to ensure progress and momentum that is essential for continual motivation......

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Rather than "provide" we need to enable the client to identify as many resources available to them and help build their confidence and capability to make conscious strategic choices on which mix of resouces would be best for them.....

As a consultant you cannot know the detail functioning of the business and what resources are required to run it efficiently, the team would know it better. As a consultant it is important to identify the bottlenecks, areas which are retarding the business and making loss for the business through inefficiencies. With the help of the team together we can identify those areas, come up with solutions and work out the required resources, may it be new or reapplying existing resources differently or shifting them to different areas or operations. It is never a good idea to increase cost in the form of providing new resources unless absolutely necessary.

Helping clients succeed means giving them the right tools and a supportive nudge. It's like sharing a favorite book, connecting them with a friend who "just gets it", or cheering from the sidelines. By offering resources and backing them up, you're saying, "I believe in you, and I'm here to help."

As a servant leader instilling a growth mindset within your clients helps everyone to achieve their full potential. Promoting clients to be honest when they don’t know can save a lot of time and energy as the answer can be identified collaboratively. This helps team members feel like they have influence earlier in the process, and it builds trust with clients.

Providing resources risks infantilising people by making them dependent on you as their source.Pointing people in the right direction to find the resources for themselves is often a better long term solution.The best leaders teach their people to fish.

Autonomy in choices is essential for ensuring ownership of actions and behaviour. Here again, we need to empower the clients by building their capacity to identify options for actionable change and transformation, thereby enhancing their confidence and commitment to their chosen options, ensuring maximum ownership of the same......

Encouraging clients' autonomy and creativity is like giving them the paint and canvas but letting them craft the masterpiece. It's about trusting their unique perspective while guiding the journey. By offering choices, seeking their ideas, and cheering on their innovations, you're saying, "Your voice matters, and I believe in your vision."

Agreed 100%. Empowerment, delegating, encouraging new ideas, supporting the team and helping them focussed towards the agreed goals are essential motivation if you want the business to grow, have the employees feel the ownership and remain dedicated towards achieving the corporate goals. Consultants can help in giving management the confidence that empowerment gives good results and should be practiced.

You encourage creativity by giving people space and time to develop their curiosity, and suspending judgement until their thoughts are fully formed.You encourage autonomy by building self-confidence.Both of these often conflict with the close task focus of management and leadership.If leaders really want to do this they often need external coaching to help them develop their own skills first.

Most of us like to see progressright away. So, when we take baby steps and can’t detect advancement, we abandon our efforts, thinking that we’ve failed. The truth is, measuring progress is often like watching grass grow. While it’s difficult to detect movement on a daily basis, it’s simple to see growth over time. Focus on inches and you’ll win by a mile.

Celebrating a client's journey is like cheering at every milestone, not just the finish line. It's recognizing the sweat, setbacks, and small wins alike. Through genuine praise, feedback, and sometimes just a pat on the back, you're saying, "I see your effort, and every step you take matters."

Every human being expects to be appreciated, this not only motivates but gives the confidence to be able to keep on raising your own bar. No one is always at his best, there are times when you can feel stuck and need help. Message should go out that everyone is welcome to come consult, share their issue and together a solution will be reached. Remember the yearly goals have to be achieved and it can only be achieved if all get the job done on time and correctly. During the monthly meetings of progress towards the goal it is good time to highlight achievements and achievers and together come up with solutions for areas which are facing difficulty in achieving their goals.

It is really important to recognise and celebrate success, every small win build towards a larger success. However it is also important to celebrate failure, as you cannot successfully increase innovation and creativity without the risk of failure. Failure is when we grow the most, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s part of the route to success. Celebrate the good and the bad to help people remain motivated and achieve their full potential.

Leading often comes with clients (or teams) relying on leaders for guidance and support. While this is essential, encouraging clients to take proactive steps, think ambitiously, and embrace calculated risks empowers them to become self-sufficient and achieve even greater success. This shift from a dependent dynamic to a proactive one not only benefits clients but also allows leaders to focus on more strategic aspects of their role.

Help your Clients see beyond the goals. Help them see the whole system of their growth & development. Inspire them to upgrade their goals within the system. Make sure they don't fixate of safe, easy goals for the sake of instant gratification, but set bold, outrageous goals that scare them and at the same time boost their growth.

Great leaders don’t just speak a speak-up culture into existence — they understand that doing so in the absence of true psychological safety is an abdication of leadership ……….

At Horizon, we go beyond mere compliance with client requests. We believe in a collaborative approach, where our expertise enriches your vision. While clients know what they want, we offer a deeper understanding of how to achieve their objectives effectively.Rather than just executing tasks, we engage in a dynamic partnership. We attentively listen to your goals, complementing them with our insights. This collaborative process unfolds at every step, ensuring that together, we shape a strategy that not only meets but surpasses expectations.Our commitment is to be a trusted partner on your journey towards unparalleled success. Client satisfaction isn't our goal; it's the starting point for outcomes that exceed your wildest expectations.

Servant leadership is only one of many leadership approaches.There is very little reliable evidence as to how well servant leadership works compared with other approaches.Even if it is the ‘best’ approach limiting yourself to servant leadership solutions regardless of the problem will make you a one trick pony. You risk becoming progressively less effective as a leader.