Accountability is reliability.

And reliability is good business.

The Studer Community Institute launches its 2016 training and development series with a goal-setting workshop hosted at New World Landing in downtown Pensacola.

More than 100 people are in attendance, getting practical advice about the good that setting objective measurable goals can do for their business or organization.

Founder Quint Studer launched the training by highlighting how training and development for small businesses, nonprofits and other organizations fulfills the institute's mission to improve the quality of life in the Pensacola metro area.

"If you learn things you wish you could have done in the past, don’t beat yourself up,” Studer said. "That is in the past. You aren't walking out of here as that person."

The session will focus on themes that are familiar to those who have attended SCI training sessions.

— Experts say 80 percent of failure comes from ambiguity.

— Lack of urgency feeds failure to improve in businesses, organizations and groups.

The Studer Community Institute’s 2016 training series Feb. 4, 2016 at New World Landing in downtown Pensacola.

Speakers include Kelly Dickey, an accountability specialist at Studer Group, and Miller Caldwell III, who will present a case-study of how he applied the idea of goal-setting and an objective evaluation system to his family's architectural firm.

Dickey encouraged attendees to narrow their focus when working on change for their business or organization.

“Systems, tools and processes are only good if you execute them,” Dickey says. "What keeps you up at night. What is critical to helping your organization move forward?"

Attendees in the pre-workshop survey noted that competing priorities were the number one barriers to success in their businesses or organizations.

So Dickey encouraged them to focus on the "big rocks" — the most important issues for their business — and then building the business goals around those.

Doing that well, she said, will mean being willing to face criticism of your organization that comes from both the inside and the outside the group to make improvement and turn it into a chance to do better.

The two-part session continues Feb. 18.

Miller Caldwell III, project manager, Caldwell and Associates Architects