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Transcript

How to Set Objectives for the Team · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: How to set objectives for the team is a task that most managers go through at least once a year.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this podcast, I take you through a tried and tested approach to set clear, actionable objectives which have the team member buy-in.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to put the effort into setting objectives, you want to ensure that your objectives help drive accountability and help increase the performance of the team.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: By doing both, the time taken to set objectives will be repaid in benefits to you, your team and the company.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the podcast, I give you suggestions on how to go about measuring progress against your objectives, which is super important in keeping the objectives front of mind for the team.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So do keep listening.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles and I spent 25 years working in corporates and household names through to SMEs at all management levels.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've been involved in turning around businesses and team performance multiple times, and one of the first things we do is set goals and objectives because it is so important to improving performance.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to this podcast, enhanced.training provides online business courses to help professionals, managers and business owners improve their performance.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you like this podcast, please share it with friends and colleagues and visit us at enhanced.training.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Too many people fear creating really good objectives.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand why.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: There is always the worry that your boss will haul you over the coals if you don't achieve them.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yet if you don't have specific objectives, how will you or your boss know when you have met them?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Many managers and companies make their objectives too vague to be useful.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Creating vague objectives does help reduce the ability of your boss to hold you to account, and it also reduces your ability to prove you have met your objectives.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So vague objectives might be safer, they are definitely a lot less useful in driving performance.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I would suggest that you fight over the level of the goals attached to the objectives rather than making your objectives vague.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Vague objectives don't help anyone in the long run.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone should know when you have reached your objectives, you, your team, your manager, and anyone else that takes an interest.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: This really is in your interests if you want to ensure your team perform and therefore you can perform too and meet your goals.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about why you should set objectives for your team, then take a look at our other podcast on why you should set objectives.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go through an objective setting process.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: The first step is to start with the end in mind.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: When setting objectives for your team, it is essential that you start with the end in mind.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are you trying to achieve in the period to which the objectives relate?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if your business has a key goal of adding 15 customers in the US and your objectives are all about Europe, then it is unlikely that you will achieve your US goals.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Getting very clear about what you want at the end of the period in question is one of the bigger challenges in setting objectives.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I would suggest that you don't use financial goals as your key goal.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Financial performance is an outcome of sales, marketing and operational activities.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And most people don't relate to financial information very easily.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Financial information is a way of measuring performance, but it's not a way of measuring the activity that drives that performance.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than having your goal of increasing sales by£100,000, you could have your key goal of increasing the number of customers say by 15.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: This of course assumes that each customer would spend on average just below£7,000.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: You could then break down your team into individual objectives focused around all the activities that need to support increasing customer numbers by 15 in the US.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that you're really clear on the end goal or objectives before you start translating these into team and individual objectives.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The second key step in setting objectives is to set objectives with a top-down approach.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: When setting objectives for the team, you should always approach it top-down.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: An obvious place to start when setting objectives for the team will be to look at the company's strategy, assuming that your strategy is clear about what it is trying to achieve over what time frame.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a strategy or a set of goals at company level, then work on these before setting objectives and goals for your team.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Your objectives should start at the top and flow down.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, starting at the company level, then maybe going down to geographies and then down to functions and then down to departments, and then down to teams, and then finally to individuals.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: This ensures that all your objectives and goals are aligned.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Each individual will be doing the work, so to get everyone working in the same direction and support each other, you must set the company objectives first and then move down into the next smallest group until you get down to the individual level.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: If individual goals and objectives are not supporting the team goals and objectives, then it will make it much harder to achieve the team objectives.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone benefits if the company reaches its goals in terms of more stable jobs, more personal development opportunities, bonuses, etc.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Set objectives and goals by starting at the top with a largest group and then working downwards towards the individual level.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: The third key step is to build the objectives with the team.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are lots of ways of setting objectives for the team.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You could choose what they are and tell the team what they need to achieve.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: This approach means that you are imposing your objectives and goals onto the team without the team getting much or any input.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Their ownership of the objectives that you've created is likely to be a lot lower.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you want the team to really own their objectives, get the team to create or help create their objectives.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Here is a quick summary of how to go about doing this.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, set out the key goal or set of goals for the team, i.e.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: where we as a team want to be in a year or in X months.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure the goal is clear and everyone will know when it has been reached.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, ask the team for their ideas on how we're going to achieve the goal.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing you can do is not give them your answers.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sit back, listen to what is being said.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ask questions to prompt them, but don't give them your answers.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Be patient.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: They will come up with answers once they know that you'll not give them what you are thinking, or at least not until they've given you their answers.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Facilitate the discussion and challenge where necessary.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for the team to arrive at a method or an approach to achieving the goals that you have set out that is realistic, stands up to scrutiny and can be achieved.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: This approach takes more time, takes more effort on your part, but you have a team that owns the objectives.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: After all, they each created the plan of how to achieve the objectives, and involving the team in actually creating the objectives will result in them owning objectives and therefore driving better team performance, which is what we're after.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, if it appears that achieving the goals is unrealistic, then challenge the team to identify and document the key assumptions, limiting them in achieving the objectives or goals.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Having the key assumptions is really important.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can use them to negotiate a change in one or more of the assumptions, or to change the team objective or goal, particularly if it was imposed upon you from your boss for instance.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: A classic example is needing more resource, you know, time, skills, capacity, cash, etc., to achieve the goals requested.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't gone through the detail of how to achieve the goal and the assumptions, negotiating a different goal or a change in resources is a lot lot harder.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Moving on to the fourth key action to set your objectives, make your objectives specific.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to have objectives against which you can measure progress and everyone knows when the objective has been reached, the objectives must be specific and detailed.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: SMART is a popular acronym detailing out the components of really useful objectives.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: You need all or as many of these components in your objectives to make it clear to you, your team, your manager, and anyone else when you have achieved your objective.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you're struggling to work out how to measure progress against your objective or the end point is not clear, then keep working on your objectives until each is very clear, or certainly the end point is very clear.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: You are then able to hold people accountable to the objective and goal, which will improve performance if used in the right way.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth key step in setting objectives is to work out how to measure progress.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So having worked out what your objectives are at team and individual level, you now need to measure progress against those objectives.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: To firstly keep people focused on their objectives, secondly, so everyone knows where they are against their objectives, thirdly, you can take correcting action as needed, and fourth, you know when you've achieved your objectives.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Choosing what you're going to measure is really important.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: This choice will drive behaviour of the team and of the individuals, especially when rewards are tied to achieving objectives and the measurement determines if the objective has been achieved.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Keep what you choose to measure as simple as possible to collect and to collate.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a complex measure that takes loads of time to collect and then put into something useful, chances are you or a team member will stop measuring it or the time spent will interfere with achieving the objectives.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Keep what you choose to measure as simple as possible to collect and to collate.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a complex measure that takes loads of time to collect and then put into something useful, the chances are you or a team member will stop measuring it at some point, or the time spent will interfere with actually achieving the objectives.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So keep it simple and easy to measure.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Here are some quite simple examples.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, if you're looking at a consultancy productivity, you could look at the number of hours billed versus the total hours, and to capture this easily, you would need timeshooting in place.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Another example, if you wanted to capture the number of bottles sold from a product business, you could add up all the orders in a given time frame that have been dispatched from the warehouse.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: To capture this easily, a stock management system would be great, otherwise, a manual process to capture dispatched orders would be needed.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or it might be something like you want to track the number of new customers, and obviously you could just tally up the number of customers that are one at the sales point, or you could look at contracts signed, or you could look at new customers that have paid their first invoice if you want to get a little bit more sophisticated.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And both of these would require either legal or finance teams to provide some kind of information to you.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Those are just some very simple examples.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Think carefully about what you're going to measure and how you're going to actually measure it simply, quickly, and without incurring lots of additional cost or time.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you measure will drive behaviour.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, how to set objectives for the team and do this well is not as easy as it first appears.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Get your objectives right and the team bought into achieving them and being able to measure progress easily against each objective, and you should have the foundations in place to increase ownership and drive team performance.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you also make it a lot easier to reward and get rewarded for great work.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Setting useful, clear objectives is well worth the effort in terms of what you get back.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So enjoy managing and leading your team.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And do visit us at enhance.training and take a look at the courses and resources to help you manage your team more effectively.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you like this podcast, please share with friends and colleagues.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.