Archive for the ‘Goals’ Category

Yesterday, we gave you 7 tips for setting better goals in 2007. Today in part 2, the Leader’s Studio team gives you 8 more.

Robert Ginnett’s tips:

• Leaders, don’t set a goal by yourself as if you are going to wait and see if your team notices the change. Improving your behavior (performance) should not be a surprise you spring on those around you. Rather, make it a collaborative effort. Let the team know what your goal is in terms of behavioral change.
• Get your team to remind you. Give team members approval and set the expectation that if and when you are not behaving according to the goal, they may remind you. Let them know that you will not shoot the messenger. If the goal is important enough to work toward, it is important enough to be monitored and corrected. Not only will you appreciate their reminders but you will expect their reminders. Let them practice positively rewarding your behavioral changes. Not only will that be good for you, but it will be good practice for them with their subordinates.

Jodi Taylor’s tips:

• Make the goal achievable. While ‘solving world hunger’ is a very noble pursuit, the simple truth is that it isn’t realistically achievable in a year. While it should be a bit of a stretch, make sure you set goals that you can achieve. If solving world hunger is your concern, you might set a goal to ‘volunteer monthly at the local food bank’ or to ‘raise $1000 for your neighborhood soup kitchen’.
• Be clear about what you are trying to do. To be successful at achieving you goals, you need to be very clear about what you are trying to do. Understand what success will really look like. What specific steps do you need to take to achieve your goal and what resources or support might you need? Once you are clear about what steps you need to take, put the actions necessary to achieve you goals in your calendar on a weekly basis. You will build in the steps to success into your calendar and your daily life.
• Changing behavior is hard and requires commitment. You are busy, going full blast and already have a very full plate. Reaching a goals takes both physical energy and mind share. It is likely your job and your life absorbs all you have already. When you set a goal, rate your commitment and the importance of the goal on a 10 point scale. How much do you really want to achieve this goal? If you can’t rate your commitment a 9 or 10 on a 10 point scale, drop this goal. You won’t have the motivation to reach it. I had a colleague once who set a goal of stopping smoking. When I asked him why, he said because his wife insisted that he stop smoking. Not surprisingly, he did not succeed. The goal was not important enough to him.
• Once your goals are clear, create a plan for measuring your progress. Try to set goals that are achievable in about 6 months and then set up smaller milestones along the way. Six months is a long enough time to do something significant and a short enough time that you can really measure progress. Remember, reaching your goals is not always a smooth transition. You will slip back into old behaviors. You will not achieve your goals every time. So it is important for you to have a plan to measure how you are doing. Most importantly, seek feedback from these you trust about how you are dong. Enlist them in your journey.

Shirley Grill’s tips:

• Work towards aligning personal and business goals. For instance, if this is a year of big goals at work (BHAG’s) then it might not be the year for a complete transformation of one’s private life. In the quest for balance between our work and personal lives, how we set our goals and determine our priorities in all parts of our life is one technique for enhancing our personal effectiveness. Easing up on some goals so as to focus on others becomes the important decision point.
• Use the ‘What if’ test. Certain goals are predetermined—by personal or work factors that are not negotiable; for those goals that are discretionary, the What If test can be applied: What if I did this—what impact would it have on the rest of my work/life goals; What if I didn’t do this—what impact would it have on the rest of my work/life goals. Goals with outcomes that support one’s overall sense of purpose, direction and priorities stay—the others should go on the deferred list for another time!

Technorati Tags: goals, goal setting, performance review, leadership, career development

For many of us, the start of a new year marks the annual performance review and goal setting process. Given all of our tight schedules, it’s all-too-easy to just go through the motions, setting goals without really making sure they’re going to help us make 2007 the best year possible.

In order to help you make the most of your goal-setting time and of 2007, we’ve asked the Leader’s Studio team to give us their tips for setting better goals in the New Year. We’ve compiled all of the responses in a two-part series.

Marilyn Tam’s tips:

• Set goals that are aligned with your life purpose. First determine whether you are on track to achieving what it is you are truly after in life. Is it really a monetary figure or a certain position? Your mission is probably something much greater like the ability to make a significant impact on the world or to provide for your loved ones. Set your goals based on what you truly value instead of some media conditioned concept of what should be important to you.
• Review your 2006 goals before you set the 2007 ones. What happened to your goals for 2006? Learn from what you did in 2006. Were you successful in your plans? If so how can the strategy(ies) you employed serve you again? If you missed your mark in 2006, what can you learn from the experience? If you neglected to set goals in 2006, how has that inspired you in your plans for 2007?
• Enlist others in achieving your goal(s). When you recruit others in supporting your goals, it helps to articulate them in ways that benefits the common good. This will help you in clarifying the reasons and methods to accomplishing your goals. The support of others will also give you more resources and insights in attaining your goals.

Kimberly Bishop’s tip:

• Setting goals is not always about something new or something not done. It is also about preserving and recognizing what is going well and setting a goal to continue that behavior or initiative. Take time to think about what is working so you don’t lose that focus in the coming year.

Fred Harburg’s tips:

• Review your goals with your peers before you commit them to your boss. If you meaningfully involve your peers in goal setting it will allow you to set a collaborative rather than competitive environment for their attainment. You may also find out that you are working on the same thing and can divide and conquer or support each other in important ways. Your peers have ideas about how you can get things done in different ways. Their ideas are valuable.
• Make sure to read your boss’s goals before you set your own. Figure out how to support her/his goals with yours. This process is called goal alignment. When goals are clearly aligned at each level of an organization they have much more power and are much more valuable to your organization. By the way, you don’t have to have a goal for every one of your boss’s and in some cases you may have more than one for one of the boss’s. Do what makes sense.
• Stagger the end dates for your goals. If all of your goals are timed to be complete in the 4th quarter, life will be hectic at the end of the year. It make more sense to think about budgeting your time and your goal completions so there is a steady flow of effort and achievement throughout the year. This will also give you a chance to gain energy from some of the early completions to sustain your later efforts.

Coming tomorrow: Part 2: 8 More tips for setting goals in 2007

Technorati Tags: goals, goal setting, performance review