Setting goals is something that a lot of people and organizations talk about doing, but most often don't do it right. With the myriad of information about goal setting in the world it is startling how obtuse people remain about how to set a goal. Most people (and unfortunately some organizations) pick a goal with little or no planning and start working towards it. Coincidentally, most people don't meet their goals and don't know why.
Goal Setting and Planning
After determining what your goal is there is a strong likelihood that you will fail to hit your goal if you do not plan to hit it. For example, if I was planning a family vacation, and my family chose to visit a vacation spot we had never been to it would do us little good to jump into our car and start driving. Jumping in the car heading in the general direction of Disney world would probably never get us there. We would need to have a map. We would need to plan out how much it'll cost us, when to fill up on gas. We'd have to decide which roads we'd take, if we will sleep in a hotel in Witchita, Kansas or New Orleans, Louisiana. All of these things need to be taken into consideration, these are the planning aspects of goal setting. Similarly, when we set goals we must first develop a plan for achieving our desired destination. You should plan all of the steps necessary to hit the goal. When developing your plan, remember to be flexible! You do not know what roadblocks will fall in your path on your way to hitting your goal, however, there is one thing you can count on in your quest to hit your goals, and that is roadblocks! Roadblocks are thrown in your path on your way to hitting your goals, they are placed there to strengthen or test your resolve. How much you want to achieve your goal will be challenged by these roadblocks. Because of that there should be a level of flexibility in how much you can allow yourself to stray from your plan and still reach your goal without feeling like you failed. If you do not allow yourself to be flexible to account for those roadblocks you will fail. This is so because if you stringently plan out every aspect towards hitting your goal and are determined to follow the mapped out course to a T and if even one wrench is thrown into the equation and even one aspect is thrown off there's a higher likelihood that you'll give up on your goal considering it a failure because it didn't go according to plan. So plan deeply but allow for roadblocks. Don't let a minor setback destroy your momentum. Think on your feet when they occur and swerve around or over the roadblock. Heck plow right through it but don't let them stop you.
Organizational Goals
Organizations thrive on making and meeting goals. They have to in this hyper-competitive global economy. If you want to remain relevant you must grow and improve from the top all the way down the line. Goals should be a stretch for your employees but not out of their reach. Everyone should be committed to the goals and management should be a valuable resource in helping their employees reach their goals. When a goal is reached it brings with it a sense of power and control. Satisfaction in the workplace increases and turnover decreases. At the organizational level relevant data analysis should be used when developing a goal. Goals within an organization should be like the carrot attached to the end of a pole dangling in front of the mule. They shouldn't be far out of reach but far enough to make your employees stretch.
Negative Examples of Developing Goals
In my current job we develop and support software for dental offices. I work in the account management department which is tasked with helping offices who have purchased and are paying for our products but aren't utilizing them. Our goal is to make 200 calls a week and to have 5 hours of outbound phone time. The statistics have shown that the more calls we make--the lower our phone time is. This is because outbound phone time only includes how long you are on a phone call, not your dialing time, not the time it takes for you to take notes about the conversation, and certainly not the time it takes to research the office that you are contacting. The only way to get your phone time up is to keep a customer on the phone for a long drawn out time, but then you would never hit your goal of 40 calls a day. There is a disconnect here, in fact, because in reality there is an inverse relationship between the number of calls made and the amount of phone time. As employees we have pointed this out to our superiors but our superiors choose to ignore this, even though they have the data before them. If they had analyzed our call records they would see this trend. If they truly valued the input of their employees, as they claim, they would catch this trend (my company is the shining example of the car with the beautiful exterior but under the hood is broken and beleaguered).
I worked for a home electronics company in 2001. I was a car audio sales associate. I had never been in sales before so I was excited when I was able to sit down with my manager to talk about my goals. He sat me down and said "Your goal is $36,000 this month." That was the goal for all of the salespeople not just myself. Whether you had worked there for 5 years or 5 minutes it was $36,000 a month. That month I didn't even get close. Nor did I the next month, nor the next (Remember in 2001 we were in a recession). That recession was pulling all sales down nationwide but $36,000 a month was the goal management had decided on a year prior to the September 11th attacks and the subsequent recession (this is an example of a company not being flexible). After my first 3 months I thought they would reevaluate my goals to make them closer to where I was performing but they didn't. They kept them there. After some time I actually lost motivation and stopped trying. My goals were so far out of my reach that I knew there was no way I could hit them so I stopped trying.
A Positive Example of Developing Goals
I contrast that with another experience I had as a salesperson. I sold flooring for a local company about 5 years later. When I started we had our goals, since I was the new guy I wasn't held up to the same standard as my peers and my goals were significantly smaller. Not only did we have our monthly goals but we broke them down into weekly chunks, and then daily chunks. More manageable bites. As the old saying goes "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." The first month I got close to my goal because I was tracking it on a daily basis. I knew I had to sell so much every day, then every week, and then for the month. The second month I actually hit my goal, and the next month, and the next, and every month for the next 3 years. As I hit one goal our managers would look at what we hit and then using that data would set a goal for the next month that was higher than the previous month but still pushed me. They also took into account the slower sales months and adjusted our sales goals down accordingly. There was no across the board number like there had been at the electronics store, they knew which months were historically slower and would adjust our goals accordingly. Every month I knew that I could hit my goals because they were within my reach while still requiring me to stretch. When I started they had wanted me to sell $3,000 that first month, by the time I left I was selling close to $100,000 a month! What's better was that I felt empowered. I felt a sense of autonomy and control over my destination. It was wonderful.
What trends do we see here? Companies where we failed to hit our goals had a few things in common:1. Goals were set at a level across the board regardless of the employee involved
2. Goals were not based on relevant data, there was just an arbitrary number chosen
3. When goals were continually not reached the companies didn't adjust the goals or evaluate why the goals fell short.
4. The importance of the goals was only stressed at the end of the month, not continuously.
What trends are common among successful companies?
1. When setting goals each person had goals set to their capabilities and experience level. 2. Extensive data was analyzed in the formation of numerical goals (ie sales figures etc)
3. When goals weren't met the organization evaluated why not and then would adjust the goals if they felt them too high or too low.
4. Hitting goals was a constant obsession! It became a game between employees. We'd tell each other after every sale where we were at. We'd create mini-contests or keep a white board illustration of a thermometer that we'd fill in whenever our numbers went up. We made hitting goals fun!
I contend that you can take any employee from Point A to Point B with their goals if they are set correctly. The goal here is to challenge people individually to build them up. Just like my manager slowly and patiently built me from a $3600 a month salesperson to a $100,000 a month salesperson, managers who set realistic, achievable goals tuned to that employees' circumstances can also build better employees.
People want to hit goals. They like to be challenged. But when a goal is placed out of the reach of your employees soon they become disinterested, even cynical. Before long you will find that your company's culture has changed and that you've created a culture of dissatisfaction and mistrust. Dissatisfied employees leads to employee turnover and employee turnover is costly to your company, make no mistake about it!
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