Goals and Collaboration

Defining Goals and Collaboration

If you are looking to grow a successful business, setting goals is the best way to do this. By having some realistic targets to work towards, this will help to drive your business forward. When both employers and their team collaborate to set goals this means everyone is working together with the same end goal in mind.

Studies have been carried out which show many organisations go about setting goals in a completely incorrect manner. Let’s have a look at some of the best ways to set goals, and how you can introduce them into your business.

Why Set Goals?

There are lots of benefits to setting goals, which are often overlooked:

1. They give a clear focus and direction, something to work towards.
2. They allow you to quickly recognise if you are veering off track.
3. They measure how far your organisation has come.
4. Research shows that goal-setting works & people perform better.
5. Goals give employees something to strive towards.

The fundamental thing about goal-setting is that your targets must align to both the mission and vision of your business. Your entire team should be working towards the same purpose, but for this to happen you need to start at the top and work your way down. Think about the overarching goals of the organisation first, then the goals the management team need in order to achieve these, and then filter through down to your front-line employees.

It is really important to give your employees the opportunity to set goals for themselves, rather than you instructing them on what they should be achieving. That way they are in control of their goals, and are more likely to take ownership of them and achieve them.

Creating Good Goals

When creating goals, think of the acronym ‘SMART’ - Specific, Measurable, Accurate, Realistic and Timely. There is no point in setting a goal that is going to take too long to achieve, or is not achievable in the first place as then it becomes demotivating.

It can be hard to get the balance right between goals that are too easy and goals that are too hard, and many businesses use ‘stretch goals’. These are goals that seem impossible to achieve, but employees may surprise themselves when they actually achieve them.

Collaboration Is Key

Setting goals isn’t enough, they need to be shared too in order to encourage people to meet them. A Forbes study carried out actually showed that people who wrote down and shared their goals achieved them almost 75% of the time, in comparison to 50% with those that didn’t share them. If people around you know your goals they can help remind and motivate you to achieve them.

Some organisations are very transparent about goal sharing, which means that even a front-line employee will know their manager’s goals. What this means is that employees can see how their goals align with the rest of the organisation, which allows for easy collaboration and people are more likely to work together. Employees can see how they are going to be contributing to the overall success of the organisation.

Guidelines For Goal Setting

If you are wanting to set valuable, achievable goals if you follow these guideline you can’t go far wrong:

1. Allow all employees to see all goals
2. Make connections between goals clear
3. Collaborate on big goals
4. Challenge yourself

If you have been setting your goals using the same traditional methods for years, now may be a good time to have a re-think. It could really transform your organisation and help all of your employees work together to achieve the overarching goals of the business.