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INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS
JOURNAL
Small
Biz
VOL. 26 NO. 16, JUNE 27-JULY 3,
2005
Leadership
Is your staff
focused on
where your firm needs to go?
Setting clear and
meaningful goals will ensure your employees
are
consistently targeting expected outcomes
By CJ
McClanahan
 |
Chances are good
you could probably run down your list of direct reports and
provide me with a fairly detailed summary of what each
person needs to accomplish by 5 p.m.
However, what
if I asked what you wanted your staff to complete by the end
of this week, month and year? Even better, what if I asked
your staff? Would they have any idea?
In this
column, I'm going to address the challenge of setting clear
and meaningful expectations and ensuring that your staff is
consistently focused on your expected outcomes.
When
I introduce this topic to business owners/managers, I
typically get the following response: "CJ, we don't need to
worry about this with my staff; they know exactly what I
expect from them." Unfortunately, after I meet with the
staff, I usually find that although they have a good
understanding of the tactical duties they need to complete
each day, they struggle answering the following questions:
-- What is the direction of your department and the
company?
-- How do your daily duties affect this
direction?
-- In what areas do you excel, and how
does this help the company reach its goals?
-- In
what areas do you need to improve, and how would this help
the company reach its goals?
-- What is your future
within this company?
Many managers look at these
questions and think, "Who cares if they understand the
direction of the company, just get your work done!" This
type of thinking is flawed for two reasons. First, if your
staff is unable to answer the questions above, they will be
less likely to effectively deal with challenges on their
own. (Why is it important that I learn how to handle
customer complaints? I'll just let the boss deal with it.)
Instead of focusing on how to grow the company, many
managers spend too much time addressing routine problems
(micromanaging).
Second, if your team isn't clear
how critical their efforts are to the success of the
company, it's a lot more difficult to get them to put in
extra effort. Managers with this problem often find
themselves begging their employees to stay until 5:30 p.m.,
skip lunch or come in for a couple of hours on a Saturday.
Before you say, "They'll come in on Saturday or I'll fire
them," don't forget how expensive it is to recruit and train
new employees.
So, how do you address this
challenge? I recommend the following steps:
1. Set
clear, meaningful and simple goals. A powerful set of goals
will include input from your entire team and will reflect
their own personal and professional aspirations. Also, these
goals must be so clear and simple that they can be memorized
and fit on the back of a business card.
2. Create an
individual "positional contract" with each employee. This
process (and document) should focus on the following:
-- detailed discussion of their regular duties;
-- summary of how their position helps the company
achieve its goals;
-- list of expected skills to
develop/improve and why this improvement will help the
company achieve its goals; and
-- discussion of the
individual rewards for the company reaching its goals
(incentive plan).
3. Reinforce, remind and review.
The biggest mistake companies make is putting a bunch of
meaningful expectations in a binder and then only referring
to them once a year. You have to keep your staff focused and
motivated. Zig Ziglar said it best: "People often say that
motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing--that's
why we recommend it daily." Here are a few quick tips for
keeping everyone focused:
-- Post your goals
everywhere!
-- Set aside time (at least monthly)
with the individuals on your team to specifically address
how their activity is affecting your goals.
--
Provide your team with a progress update on a regular (at
least monthly) basis and post this progress near your goals.
There is no doubt that this will require more time
and effort, but the benefits of having an inspired team that
is crystal clear about their individual and group
expectations is huge!
McClanahan is a business coach
with Action International. He can be reached at 845-9742 or
info@coachcj.com.
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