When going to a destination we have not been to before, we plan our route before starting. Ever noticed how you can end up clocking steps without much headway, if you haven’t mapped your route before you start?
There is a lot of waste because if you haven’t taken the time to plan your trip, it becomes a guessing game – your trial and error may take you down dead ends and make you retrace your steps and start again. Thank God for Google maps!
Organisational goals are quite similar. Having clear and well defined goals is important because it keeps the organisation focused on it’s strategic direction. Unfortunately apps like Google Maps are no good at guiding this journey.
The success is in setting clear goal and having a good plan.
In fact, setting goals is the easy part. It is the ‘getting there’ that is the hard part.
Here are three steps to ensuring you achieve your organisational goals successfully:
- Ensure your team is aligned with the company’s strategic direction:
- Clearly define your organisations’ goals ensuring they are aligned to the overall strategy
- The Head of the organisation communicates their goals to their direct reports, whose objective is to meet their Leader’s goal
- Similarly, each Layer of the organisation communicates their goals to their teams; and each team’s objective is to meet their Leader’s goal
This ensures that goals of every individual in the company contribute to the overall strategic goals of the company.
- Once goals have been set and aligned, allow each individual to come up with a plan of how they will meet their goals
This is important because when people are allowed to create their own path, they are invested in the outcome. And because this outcome contributes to your goal, ultimately, they are contributing to YOUR success
Also, it brings innovation because your team members bring in new ideas that expand the organisational thinking
Of course ensure you have reviewed the plan to make sure it will get you to the expected destination.
Now that the goals have been defined, aligned and planned, it’s time to execute these plans.
- To ensure these plans are executed as expected, create measures that you will use to track progress:
- Ensure you have identified success criteria for each goal. Well defined success criteria will help you know when the goal has been achieved
- Identify KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) that are aligned to your success criteria. KPI’s are important so you can track your progress
- Track and monitor these KPI’s consistently. This will help you identify when you are going off track and need to tweak your plans and execution to refocus on the goal
- Ensure your plans are current. Change is inevitable. If the ecosystem around you has changed, you will need to change your plan to align with the new requirements. If you have set good measurable KPI’s, you will be identify these changes in time.
An organisation with clearly stated goals; aligned with each employee’s objectives; and measured & tracked, is well on it’s path to success. This process starts building historical data that forms very valuable input into future planning. When done right, it also helps Leaders create an environment of ‘shared responsibility’ with their team members – success of the organisation is not the Leader’s job alone. Every employee has an important role to play – their success equals the company’s success!
(Image is courtesy Yann Allegre – Unsplash)