How to Create Goals That Lead to Business Success and Employee Engagement
Let’s play pretend. You are a senior leader and you set your company’s goals for the year. You are proud of your accomplishment and think you’ve done good. Then you ask employees to set their goals for the year. Everyone sets their goals, is proud of their accomplishment, and thinks they’ve done good.
At first glance you may think this company is on track because at least everyone has goals, right? Not so fast. This company has missed a huge opportunity to ensure that everyone is marching in the same direction and employees are only doing work that support the company’s goals. It has also missed a huge opportunity to increase employee engagement. In order to be engaged, employees must see line of sight between what they do every day and where the company is going. How do you accomplish this? Goal Alignment.
In its simplest form, the senior leader sets goals for the company and his/her direct reports set their goals based on the leader’s goals. Then the next layer down sets their goals based on their supervisor’s goals, and so on and so forth. When this process is complete, every employee in the organization has goals that support their chain of command all the way up to the senior leader, and that support the company’s goals. And more importantly, this process ensures that everyone in the company is being productive and only doing work that is helping move the organization forward.
Goal alignment will cement your company’s success. When everyone is marching in the same direction and working on a handful of goals, you’ll meet or exceed your targets virtually every time. Let me help you corral your employees, so they march in the same direction and you reach your goals. Together, we can do this.