4 Keys To Creating Better Goals At Work

The importance of effective goals on an employee’s performance, engagement and motivation has been thoroughly researched and well-documented. We know that setting effective goals provide the benefits of clarity, focus, increased performance, professional development, and accountability.

You have probably heard the term SMART goals which is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. This all makes sense as the SMART framework provides a clear and simple approach to writing a goal. The challenge was that focusing on SMART goals alone rarely got my clients all the way to where they needed to be with developing effective goals. It became obvious that some important components for developing effective goals were missing with this common approach to goal setting.

That is why I started to use a different goal setting framework when working with leaders and employees called the “The 4 Keys to Creating Effective Goals”. This approach to creating goals not only encompasses the SMART concepts; it also captures the critical elements for developing professional goals that are meaningful, results-oriented, challenging (but achievable), and aligned with the organization’s values.

Let’s quickly review the framework for the “4 Keys to Creating Effective Goals” and why each of the Keys are important.

Key #1: Meaningful to both the employee and company

Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.

- Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, Harvard Business School

Wow, this quote is a huge reminder to me why it is important to find purpose and meaning within our work. An effective professional goal needs to be meaningful to both the organization and the employee. This process starts with ensuring that employees have a familiarity with the organization’s strategy and its most important goals. Equipped with this knowledge, employees can be an active participant in the goal-setting process instead of being handed down goals that they had no input in developing. Having influence and being able to articulate why a goal is important creates a foundation for establishing meaningful goals. Everyone has the psychological need to believe their input and work is valued.

There is a higher-level aspiration for creating meaningful goals. Employees should continually strive to position themselves in organizations, teams and roles that allow for goals that are in alignment with their strengths, passions, aspirations, and career goals. In his book The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor shared the following fact: “Research conclusively shows that those who fail to find high meaning and engagement at work are three times less likely to have life satisfaction and happiness outside of work.” Meaningful professional goals support our overall well-being and happiness!

Key #2: Focused on the intended result

The most common mistake that I see people make when developing effective goals is listing the activities of the role instead of focusing on the intended results of performing the role with excellence. An effective goal defines the intended results by providing performance measures for success. Typically goals can be made measurable by providing the expected Quality, Quantity, and/or Time.

One approach for creating result-oriented goals is to list out all the most common activities and tasks a person does within their role and then to organize them by themes. Below is an example of a role that has a group of similar activities that create a customer service theme.

Customer Service Activities

• Respond to customer questions
• Acknowledge and resolve customer complaints
• Keep up to date with product knowledge and current issues
• Respond to customers with a positive and professional attitude
• Keep records of customers interactions

These activities may be necessary for this person to succeed in the customer service aspect of their role, but they don’t define the intended result/s for successfully performing these activities. See the example below of a results-oriented goal for this list of customer service activities.

Quarterly customer satisfaction survey scores of 4 or above, on a 5-point scale, in the areas of overall customer satisfaction, net promoter, and customer effort scores.

This goal clearly defines, in a quantifiable way, the intended results for this role's customer service activities.

Key #3: Challenging, but achievable

Over 40 years of empirical research has clearly proven time and again that specific, challenging goals lead to higher levels of performance than vague, easy, or do-your best goals across a wide variety of settings and task types. This research demonstrates the need to find the right balance between a challenging goal and an almost impossible goal.

Setting challenging and achievable goals is not a one size fits all approach. Managers cannot be successful in helping employees find the right balance between stretch and achievable unless they invest the time to accurately assess the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the members on their team. A challenging goal for one person may be an impossible or easy goal for another employee. If an employee can achieve the goal without much challenge then consider how to help them add a level or quality of performance they never had before, or one that is going to require them to stretch and practice new skills or behaviors.

Key #4: Aligned with company values

Organizations set values that define the types of behaviors that it expects from its employees such as integrity, collaboration, open communication, and customer service. An employee's goals should align with the companies’ values.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. For years, Wells Fargo was considered an industry leader in cross-selling - getting customers to open multiple bank accounts, credit cards, and mortgages, which was a hugely profitable opportunity. The leadership team set increasingly aggressive cross-sale goals, cascading down to increased quotas for individual employees. In 2013, executives set a stretch goal of eight financial products sold to each household, around five times the industry average.

The result? Sales representatives facing an impossible task resorted to widespread unethical behavior, leading to more than 3.5 million fraudulently opened accounts and more than $300 million in fines and class action lawsuit payments.

Wells Fargo isn’t the first company that has set goals that backfired to disastrous ends. Goals should always be checked to ensure alignment with the organization’s values.  If goals start having unintended consequences they must be immediately shifted to support behaviors that reflect the desired culture and values of the organization.

Leveraging these "4 Keys" will help leaders and employees create goals that are meaningful, results-oriented, challenging (but achievable), and aligned with the organization’s values.

Tony Gambill is a principal consultant for CREO Inc., an innovative management consulting and advisory firm based in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park. Tony brings more than 20 years of proven executive experience in leadership and talent development within global for-profit, non-profit, technical, research, healthcare, government and higher educational industries. www.CreoInc.net