Goal Setting

Summary

The more I coach, the more I start to pick up on key themes depending on the ‘season’ or the time of year. This provides insight into where people are spending their time, on what, what processes are being utilized, how it is going, and the effects it can have on people. This inspired me to write this blog on goal setting as it is a key theme for many clients at this time. Setting goals is something we regularly do, both formally and informally. Setting goals is a powerful practice that allows us to:

• Plan with intention
• Align our actions across an organization
• Progress towards overall vision and strategic objectives

How seriously we take it, how formal our process is, how we perform the art and science, and how we transition our goals into actionable and measurable objectives and tasks will determine our overall success. This blog will walk you through the importance, benefits, and optimum timelines for goal setting, as well as will provide a framework for your goal setting process.

Background

Around this time of the year, many organizations are working through their planning cycle and preparations for next year, reflecting on the current year performance, and envisioning a future appropriate to and commensurate with organizational vision and strategy. They are setting their goals.

Goal setting can be a catalyst for using shared experiences for the good of the organization going forward. Specifically, goal setting can be:

• A time of self-reflection
• Where we can evaluate our achievements thus far
• When we pause to learn from experience
• How we set our sights on shared intent for the future

In this blog, we will explore the importance of goal setting, the step-by-step process to create effective goals, ideal timing, and how to measure and track our progress. This is applicable for personal or professional goals, but the main angle when writing this was aligned with organizational goal setting. Whether you’re a seasoned goal-setter or new to the practice, this blog will provide you with insights and practical tips to provide more awareness of your goal-setting journey.

Why Goal Setting is Important

You’ve likely heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail“, and that’s most certainly the case when it comes to goal setting. How else would you or your organization have a semblance of understanding of what the future holds if you don’t take the time to gather and collate information, formulate a plan, then progress towards implementation?

One thing I want to be very clear about is that setting goals is not about wishful thinking; it is about taking intentional action and aligning efforts towards a common purpose. By incorporating goal-setting practices into our lives and organizations, we can realistically provide ourselves a clear opportunity to achieve our desired results. However, we have to be realistic. This is where history and experience comes into play. Organizations, even newer ones, have access to historical and experiential data that can be used to sprinkle reality on goal setting. Without this reality your plan can quickly descend into fantasy, land with your team like a lead balloon, and lead to challenges around do-ability, team member motivation and (potentially) retention. That’s not to say you must play it completely safe. During the goal setting endeavour can be a time to consider pushing the envelop and being ambitious, but not to the detriment of the practicality of delivery and anticipated success.

Goal setting is important because you need a collective understanding what you intend to achieve and where you will be investing your organizational time, skills, experience, talent, and efforts. Throughout the process you will be able to communicate with leadership on progress and investment required to achieve your goals (e.g., monies, expert help, training and development, etc.), creating an information loop that allows you to constantly ensure alignment with organization vision and strategy.

The Benefits

Deliberate intention to setting goals allows us to:

• Plan with intention: By setting clear and specific goals, we can create a roadmap for success, helping us to identify what we want to achieve, and developing a strategic plan to get there. With intentional planning, we can prioritize our actions and make progress towards our desired outcomes

• Align our actions across an organization: Goals provide a common purpose and direction for an organization. When goals are set and communicated effectively (see Blog #6), it ensures that everyone is working towards the same objectives (in theory). Done well, this alignment will foster collaboration, synergy, and a shared sense of purpose, ultimately leading to increased productivity and likelihood of success

• Progress towards overall vision and strategic objectives: Goals act as key contributors to our larger vision and strategic objectives. They help break down the ‘big picture’ into manageable milestones, making it easier to track progress. By setting goals that are in line with our vision, we can ensure that our actions are purposeful and contribute to the long-term success of our endeavors

Think about each of these in the opposite tense: no intention or alignment, and no progress towards vision and strategy. Wee bit scary, isn’t it? So, appreciating that no rational person in your organization would want these challenges, let’s start to define a process you could follow.

When Goal Setting Should Take Place

There is no right or wrong answer as to when goal setting should take place:

• It must work for you in your organization
• With enough time apportioned to and for it to give the optimum opportunity for success
• Potentially based on fiscal calendar requirements (e.g., towards the end of a current year to help establish clarity and focus for the beginning of next year, or at the end of a fiscal quarter, etc.)
• During emerging circumstances (i.e., in reaction to an event)

Understand that goal setting can be done at any time, and it is never too late to start, however the ideal scenario is that it is proactive, intentional, and clearly understood. If it is reactive to an unanticipated event, the process described above should still be used as a guide to follow, with circumstantial reality applied to how much time you will have available to perform each step. 

Who Should be Involved

A key part in support of the entire process is establishing who needs to be part of the goal setting. If the process is intended to be approached from a general (strategic) to specific (tactical) level of detail, that will help you determine who could/should be in the room at each given point in the process. Having every key stakeholder (internal and/or external) involved from initial ideation through to objectives setting and scheduling might be infeasible in some organizations depending on the type and style of goals, resource availability, ‘noise’ that could be generated, and day-to-day responsibilities (i.e., available time). Now, this must be rationalized with ensuring that you have enough skills and experience in the room to make the required decisions and progress depending on where you’re at in goal creation, so please approach this area with purpose. Don’t include or exclude key contributors without having clearly rationalized the reasoning for their inclusion or exclusion.

6 Key Elements of Goal Setting

This section will walk through a 6-step high-level process on how to establish your goals and objectives and work through to how you will measure and adjust throughout the timelines of delivery. The key steps of effective goal setting are:

1. Identify your goals and objectives: Establish criteria on what vision and strategic objectives will be satisfied by delivering the goals. Use appropriate reflection on organizational aspirations to help determine what you’re trying to achieve. Some of the goals could be dictated as mandatory by organization leadership, such as requirements to comply with law or regulations, safety, to provide a competitive advantage, DEI-related, or in satisfaction of other specific needs. If you don’t understand the need or requirement for specific goals, you must ask questions within your organization until you do. How else will you be able to communicate the goals to the satisfaction of the receiver if you don’t understand them fully yourself?

2. Set SMART goals: Not every part of the process must be revolutionary. Using the concept of Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals, is an effective starting point. This also provides an understanding of how much information is available on each goal, thus establishing how much more research and information gathering may still be required to get the goals more understood

3. Break goals into actionable steps: As you move more from strategy toward tactical delivery reality, the importance of breaking down (decomposing) larger goals into smaller, more manageable tasks is crucial. This is where you will consider utilizing the help of implementation resources to help further understand the ‘how’ (to do it) from the ‘what’ (is it)

4. Creating a timeline: As you continue to decompose your goals to objectives to tasks, you’ll be in a better position to assign realistic timelines to these tasks, thus creating a fuller understanding of overall delivery duration. You will then be able to align these timelines with other dependent timelines such as:
   • Other organizational goals and objectives
   • Core business functions
   • Resource skill sets
   • Resource availability
   • Reality

Setting realistic timelines, based on a holistic understanding of what (is it), how (we will do it), and when (effort and duration required), will create a more robust plan, increase the likelihood of success, and, more importantly, provide another firm data point to allow you to readily keep track of progress.

5. Accountability and tracking: Completion of items 1-4 doesn’t guarantee success in overall goal delivery. You will need a structure in place to measure progress in the form of a governance process that can use these measurements to make decisions, continually tweak, adjust, realign, and communicate the journey in real-time. These measurements can be in the form of metrics tracking items such as:
   • Schedule (adherence to planned timelines)
   • Progress on task delivery (e.g., % complete)
   • Quality of deliverables produced
   • Budget / spend
   • Risks introduced during delivery

Establishing measurement criteria, measuring against the outputs, communicating progress to plan, making recommendations to aid decisions, adjusting where necessary, and continuing to listen to understand how the organization is benefiting from the delivery will stand you in good stead to continue to understand what you’re doing, why, and how it’s going. This should be constant from the outset of delivery.

6. Communication: A fundamental element of goal setting in any organization is to layer in appropriate communication at each juncture of the process. This will allow you to pause and reflect on where you are in the process, how much progress has been made, how satisfied you are with the progress, what’s next, and who needs to know. Performing goal setting in isolation with little-to-no communication can set you up for more difficult circumstances and conversations later in the process. An open, clear accompanying communication plan is a must

Based on what I’ve shared, how does this compare to your experience in goal setting? If it closely aligns and you’ve enjoyed success in the past, that’s great news. If it doesn’t align and you’ve endured sporadic or full-scale breakdown of the process, then I hope the insights shared here will be a help to you going forward. If it doesn’t align but you’ve enjoyed tremendous success in goal setting, please do get in touch as I’d love to talk about your process to learn what is working out there.

I’m always open to a conversation on your thoughts, opinions, and experiences on this or any topic in the library. Get in touch by subscribing below, or by using the form on the Book Gary of the site.