We are often asked, how do I set goals with my team?
People set goals for themselves. But setting goals as a team can be even more powerful.
So how do you know where to start?
What do you need to do?
- Comfortable Environment – Make sure the environment is comfortable for everyone. What does that mean?
- Hold the meeting in a neutral zone. If you have team members from different areas, hold it in an area where no one has home field advantage.
- Listen to everyone. Give everyone a chance to speak. You need buy in. You may not use all goals mentioned. But you need to give everyone a chance to be heard.
- Use an agenda. As much as you want to give people a chance to talk, you need to stay on task. Keeping people on track allows everyone to stay focused.
- Review your accomplishments – This meeting is a great time to say what you did well last year.
- Review your shortcomings – Use last year’s failures as great lessons learned and areas to improve. During this time, ask for help from your team for solutions.
- Clarify your BIG goal – What is your overall company or team goal? This BIG goal will help you break down the smaller goals (to lead you to the big goal). Example: Our main goal is to increase overall customer satisfaction by providing outstanding service. Every goal should then go through a ‘check.’ Each goal should be questioned: “will this increase overall satisfaction by providing outstanding service?”
- Define responsibilities. Once you have your list of goals, it’s time to set responsibilities for individuals. Buy in is earned through all of these steps. But final buy in with individual accountability is critical!
Do you have any ‘rules’ or ‘guidelines’ you follow for setting team goals?
