Where does Goal Setting fit in your management toolkit?

One of the reasons why I believe that old school performance review (or appraisal) processes don’t work well is because? of the way we use Goals and Objectives. Many processes use goal setting as an afterthought.

The annual performance review meeting should focus on two way feedback between employee and manager, although I have seen many processes which focus on the manager feedback with little input from the employee.

So, what if we turned the process on its head and focussed primarily on goal setting and left the two way feedback for a less formal meeting?

Firstly, let me clarify how I view the difference between goals and objectives:

1.????? The goal – this is the one thing, big or small, that you want to achieve, it could be where you want to be in your career at the end of the year, how much you want to grow your business by a fixed point in time, a new skill you want to learn or a qualification you want to achieve. There will also be a purpose behind this goal…. Why it is important to you or the business and it is just as important to understand this as the goal.

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2.????? Objectives are the smaller steps that you need to achieve or the process that you need to follow to achieve the goal.? If the goal is to grow your business, then you might break that down into smaller objectives that each team or department need to deliver that will contribute to the greater goal. When communicating these departmental goals it is very important to be able to communicate the ‘purpose of the main goal’, so that teams and individuals understand how they can contribute and add value.

Now that is a very short and simple explanation, but it should broadly work for most of you.

So how can we help managers improve performance through more effective goal setting?

1.????? Make goal setting the main focus of the performance management process.? The old school process, focusses too heavily on two way feedback and not enough on goal setting. This means that managers develop a false impression that goal setting is not as important.

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2.????? Start ALL performance review meetings and monthly 1:1’s with a review of agreed goals before giving and receiving feedback.? When managers focus on reflection and feedback first, their mindset is focussed on past performance. This makes it difficult to switch focus to what needs to be achieved in the coming months and how that contributes to the ‘big business goal’. The switch between reflection and future planning needs to happen for goal setting to be successful.

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3.????? Most goals are simply too big and are forgotten as we get bogged down with day to day work.? Goals should make a difference to the work we do every day. Use my ‘success profile’ as an alternative to the traditional job description and the most important goals will jump off the page.