Blog

Following on from last weeks post about managing the motivation of your talent we thought that it would be a good time to discuss how to set effective goals for your team members.

Effective goal setting is an under-rated management tool and can be the key to an effective team. However, you need to be selective about what you set and who you set it with!

There a number of rules stick to when setting goals:

Understand your team-members
Some people are competitive; enjoy the feeling of 'them against the world' while others enjoy collaborative team goals where they support and help others. If you have an environment where team performance is important then avoid setting goals that pitch one person against the other, instead reward team achievements. Think very carefully about the message you send by rewarding individual performance when the team fails overall.

Make sure goals are specific
Even easy, specific goals are better for performance and morale than non-specific goals. Tell people exactly what you want, don't assume they'll just work it out for themselves. All the time they spend figuring it out increases frustration; the result is decreased commitment and decreased motivation. Be clear and give appropriate detail.

Ensure the goals you set achieve things your team want; get buy-in
Goals need to be consistent with the mood and the tone of every other message you are giving your team, consistency is essential. When the team have committed to something create goals that extend that commitment, not contradict it.

Make sure the goals you set are aligned with your values
If your organisation has values then promote them, not undermine them. mixed messages will only serve to confuse your team and lead to diminished commitment.

State your goal in positive terms, not negative
Thinking positive thoughts generates more positive thoughts. Positivity breeds motivation; motivation breeds determination; determination breeds results!
Set your team out to achieve positive results, not to avoid negative ones.

Goals must be challenging, but achievable
Don't set your people up to fail, allow to achieve the goals you set and steadily increase the difficulty in line with their growing confidence and self-belief. You'll be amazed at what they manage to do for you in the future