Is Your Forest Too Dense? Part 2

Goal Management for Success 

A practice that can help to thin out the forest is to have an effective process for reviewing and adjusting the organization’s goals and targets. Obviously it’s important for every organization to have goals and targets. It’s also important for Leadership to recognize changes in the business environment and allow teams to focus on what is important as conditions change.

Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor. – Brian Tracy

Here is a simple three-step process for managing goals and targets.

1. Make General Organizational Goals Available to All Employees

         Leadership must establish a set of organizational goals that will be the basis for the individual goals for each employee. This set of goals for the organization should be available to all employees for their review. It is helpful for employees to see what is driving the activities of the company. Transparency around an organization’s goals will help generate trust in leadership. Building trust within the organization will create many long-lasting benefits.

         It is also helpful for Leadership to publish periodic updates on how the organization is performing with respect to the goals. Organizations sometimes use a stop-light system (Green / Yellow / Red) to indicate if the goals are on track to being achieved.

2. Set Tangible and Measureable Goals for Individuals

         Managers will need to establish tangible goals and targets with realistic timelines to make it easier for their team members to understand their role in achieving organizational goals. Stating goals in a few sentences that can be easily understood will help team members to keep them in mind. For example, making a statement such as ‘increasing net sales 20% in 2016’ is better than saying the goal is ‘to ‘double sales over the next 5 years’’. In this example, if employee performance is evaluated on a periodic basis, the goal must be broken down into quantifiable pieces for each period and the sales target clearly stated when results are to be measured.

         In general, the goals and targets must be stated in terms that everyone can measure and at some point in time determine whether they were clearly met or not. In contrast, goals and targets that require the manager to use subjective measures to determine if the goal was satisfied will most likely create angst and will not be as effective. Subjective goals can make team members feel like they are trying to hit a moving target.

3. Review and Adjust Goals as Needed

         Even though goals and targets are generally established on an annual basis for the upcoming year, a periodic review of the goals should take place. Business conditions can change quickly and the current goals may not accurately reflect a mid-term change in the direction by leadership. For example, a new client/customer places a large order that must deliver quickly to help them gain a competitive advantage. Meeting their delivery date may be achievable, but due to production capacity constraints it will delay shipments to other clients. Accepting the large order may result in higher overall sales and opportunities for the additional business in the future, however it may lower overall customer service results in the short-term.

         In the example above, Management decisions may be problematic for employees who are evaluated on annual customer service metrics. Sales growth may be a goal for upper management, however the rank and file should not be penalized if they don’t reach their customer service goals because of Management’s decision. To keep everyone motivated, the goals may need to be adjusted to account for Management’s decision to accept lower overall customer service levels, even if it is a temporary situation.

From a general management perspective, it is very helpful to have periodic reviews of performance against the goals. A meeting between the employee and manager should take place at least every 6 months to keep everyone up-to-date on their performance compared to current goals and targets. As shown in the example above, a formal mid-year review can be a good time to make any course corrections due to changing business conditions.

Utilizing a formal process to set and publish organizational goals will keep the organization aligned for success. Employing a process to make periodic adjustments to goals and targets will enable the organization to adjust to rapidly changing business conditions and ‘control the direction of change in their favor’.

Photo credit: Depositphotos.com 35275163 by grafxart