Executive Tools
- Executive Summary
- Self Assessment Checklist
Expert Practices Articles
- How and Why Goal Setting Works
- Setting Achievable Corporate Goals
- Cascading Goals in the Organization
- Ensuring Goal Implementation
- When Goal Setting Goes Wrong
- Improving Your Life with Personal Goals
- The Quantum Factor: Beginning With Yourself
Tools & Analysis
- Organizational Goal Worksheet
- Personal Goal Worksheet
- "Master Want List" Worksheet
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the Entire Best Practice Module: Goal Setting
How and Why Goal Setting Works
It's official: we can accomplish more and go farther if we dedicate
ourselves to written goals, keep the goals on our corporate and
personal radar screens and follow through on the steps required
to make them happen.
Vistage speaker Angelo Kinicki, who co-authored the textbook "Organizational
Behavior," found that 68 out of 70 organizations examined in
various studies enjoyed productivity gains as a result of management
by objectives. Goal setting is the first step in management by objectives.
"Research on goal setting shows that it's a very powerful
technique to improve individual productivity and organizational
effectiveness," says Kinicki.
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the Entire Best Practice Module: Goal Setting
Setting Achievable Corporate Goals
Before you can begin goal setting, it's essential to create a blueprint
for how the process will unfold, advises Breier.
He recommends five points in the company plan:
- Mission statement
- Vision statement
- Fiscal year priorities
- Strategies
- Monthly monitoring and managing meetings.
Beginning with a mission statement, each step flows into the next
-- and goal setting begins after the mission and vision statements
are finished. The process needs to be simple. "The more complex
it is, the less people are enjoying it,'' Breier says.
To be effective, goals should follow the "SMART" format.
That means they should meet these criteria:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Results oriented
- Time sensitive
As goals are set within the organization, finding the right amount
of "stretch" -- for growth -- is crucial.
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the Entire Best Practice Module: Goal Setting
Cascading Goals in the Organization
Kinicki coined the term "cascading goals" to describe
the process of adopting goals at different levels in a company.
Like water over a cliff, goals must spill over and "cascade''
throughout an organization to be implemented.
"Cascading creates horizontal alignment in a company,"
says Kinicki. All the executives at the same level need to gain
agreement about what they will do to support the CEO's vision and
minimize conflict.
A dramatic example: Over two years, a technology division of American
Express was able to cascade goals from a senior vice president to
the 800 people in that area. The end result: the costs of developing
a software system were cut in half over a two-year period.
How Cascading Works -- Once the vision and main categorical goals
are set at the CEO and managerial level, select a person who will
champion the process of cascading goals. He or she works to ensure
that each department will create goals and action plans that support
the goals of the company's leadership.
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the Entire Best Practice Module: Goal Setting
Ensuring Goal Implementation
Action Plans -- When everyone returns to their jobs after goal
setting exercises, enthusiasm for the goals can be buried by the
demands of day-to-day business. The first step is to develop action
plans based on the goals -- complete with incentives and consequences
for non-performance.
Accountability -- Discussing consequences is critical in any goals-to-action
plan.
Often, the consequences are determined as the team works on the
goals in the earliest planning stages. Houcek encourages the team
to arrive at the "three strikes and you're off the team"
approach.
In Houcek's experience, peer pressure creates such an intense expectation
of performance that it causes action. "The perceived humiliation
of removal from the team is so great that most people act,'' he
says.
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the Entire Best Practice Module: Goal Setting
When Goal Setting Goes Wrong
How often have you set goals that are then set aside? Examine roadblocks
if you have a pattern of abandoning organizational or corporate
goals.
Commit Goals to Paper -- This may seem obvious. But Houcek is surprised
at how often goals are stated but not written down. Let your TEC
or KEY group or chair hold you accountable to writing down your
goals.
Ten Organizational Roadblocks
Personal Obstacles in Goal Setting -- When we fail to meet personal
goals, many factors may be at play. Houcek, in his studies of high
achievers and his experiences with thousands of executives, finds
the following common denominators: CEOs with no passion for the
goals they have set; the goals are not precise; the personal goal
is at cross-purposes with the CEO's self-image.
Fearing Failure, Commitment -- Fears can play a role in our failure
to make -- or realize -- goals. "Goal setting is basically
making a commitment," says Breier. "Fear of commitment
is prevalent in the world. If I don't set a goal, then I'm not accountable
for it. That's a subconscious tactic for avoiding goal setting."
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the Entire Best Practice Module: Goal Setting
Improving Your Life with Personal Goals
Houcek leads a life filled with passion. He believes it's because
he has mastered the art of goal setting and realizing those goals.
"It makes for a very fulfilling life. I spend virtually 100
percent of my time in four areas.'' They are: his family, personal
health and fitness; his business and playing baseball in a traveling
men's league.
Houcek finds that many executives don't spend time with their spouse,
and don't do the things that create intimacy in a family. But he
believes we can "soar with the eagles" by acting on our
passions -- if we are honest with ourselves about what those passions
are.
Start with "Master Want List" -- If living that kind
of life sounds appealing, Houcek says it all begins with a little
list called the "Master Want List.''
Questions to prompt you: What do you want to do with your life?
Who do you want to meet? What new activities do you want to try?
What experiences do you want to have again? Where do you want to
go? What do you want to learn? What do you want to improve? Who
do you want to spend more time with?
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the Entire Best Practice Module: Goal Setting
The Quantum Factor: Beginning With Yourself
To Hill, if you want to have a better business, become a better
person. If you want to create new markets, become a better person.
If you aspire to greater spheres of influence, become a better person.
Hill contends we can make quantum leaps by creating quantum goals.
The G-Curve -- As Hill began studying people who have made dramatic
improvements in their lives, he noticed that they seemed to do so
at 18-month intervals. He calls this year and a half period the
Growth Curve, or G-Curve. As a result: If you can stay disciplined
and focused on your goals for 18 months, Hill says, you can experience
major breakthroughs in your life.
Creating Quantum Goals -- A quantum goal is reachable, achievable,
but beyond your current expectations. "Quantum goals aren't
unrealistic -- like I want to be President of the United States
in 18 months -- but they do involve taking risks," Hill says.
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the Entire Best Practice Module: Goal Setting
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