Setting Goals with your team
It’s that time of year - annual goal setting time. This is a great time to work with your team on what you’re looking to accomplish as a business, team, and individually. Here are a few quick tips to help you plan for the next year with your team.
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What is the ultimate goal that your business or your team is looking to accomplish? This can be an annual goal or a quarterly goal.
Ask yourself:
Is the goal specific?
How will I know it’s been achieved?
When will it be accomplished?
What are the milestones?
The process of coming up with this big goal can be something set by you or by your leadership team - this will depend on your organization’s structure and the trust you have with your leadership team.
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Meet with your leadership team (or all employees - depending on the size of your organization) and start planning on the HOW.
Answer the questions:
HOW will we achieve the big goal?
WHAT needs to happen?
WHAT strategies will we deploy to ensure that big goal is accomplished?
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Once you have a strong understanding of the big goal and the strategies that need to be deployed - you can start engaging your team members on what executing parts of the strategies might look like.
This is going to be based on an individual’s role in the organization.
This is also a great opportunity to engage team members that show passion in a particular area or are looking for growth opportunities.
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The big goal, the strategies, the individual goals all must be crystal clear…meaning at the end of the year (or quarter based on your goal cycle) you must be able to answer the question, “did they accomplish the goal?”
We like to use the SMART acronym to help define this. Ask yourself - is the goal specific, measurable, achievable, repeatable, and timely?
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This is a critical step in engaging in goal setting with your team.
We, as leaders, might not be aware of all the details, scenarios, and perspectives that come with execution. It’s important for us to engage our team in objections and come from curiosity.
This allows for a healthy dialogue around the following…
WHY objections are coming up
WHAT gaps might exist
WHAT other options or opportunities might present themselves
HOW you might think about opportunities for that person’s growth and development
Awareness for YOU if the goal isn’t accomplished.
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As you’re setting goals for your business or team, this is a perfect time to engage with your team members on opportunities they might have for growth.
Do opportunities exist in the strategies to expand someone’s role or allow them to explore a new passion?
Do gaps exist where an individual can grow into a role or where they might need additional training or development?
Keep these conversations separate from the organizations goals - generally the organizations goals are non-negotiable, however individual growth and development might occur at a different pace.
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This is important!! How will you engage with your team on successes?
This can be individual accomplishments, hitting milestones or executing on strategies, and hitting the big goal.
It’s important to engage the team in HOW they want to celebrate…so that you’re clear on what reward would mean something to your team members.
Working through each of these steps is critical in achieving the goals you intend to hit. This creates a strong foundation for your leadership team to engage and have an open dialogue around what the goals are and how they will be achieved.
As always, we are here to support you in achieving the goals you have for your organization. Please reach out to us for a free consultation in how we can support you on your path!