Setting inspiring goals is a good start, but without control, reality risks changing both priorities and activities and thereby jeopardizing the goals.
In the same way, the best governance in the world can not compensate for goals that are not perceived as inspiring or realistic. To this should be connected our changing world, which means that goals that previously had a horizon of one year are now now quarterly goals to be credible.
Conditions that are no longer true require new goals.
Goal management is about:
To agree on goals that clarify where you are going, and why you can and should reach them, and thereby inspire the organization or team to want to strive in the same direction.
Ensure that there is the will and conditions to achieve the goals and follow up that the goals continue to be what helps you to prioritize, change and carry out activities.
For goal management to work, it needs to be inspiring, supportive and governing for the absolute majority of your employees. And not just when the goals are presented but during the absolute majority of all their working days during the year! This is where it starts to become clear why goal management is so complex: In a company with 100 employees, at least 80 of them, for at least 4 out of 5 days in the weeks they work, experience that they do things that lead to set goals and that they get help to stop doing things that do not lead there and instead start with other activities
Basically, good goal management means that the overall goals meet employees' personal goals. Then the inspiration is based on something that is important for each employee. The control then becomes "quite simple" to find the right mix of results as both benefits the organization and the individual employee. As in all relationships, it becomes a giving and taking. "If you do this for the organization, I am willing to support you to reach that. "
What makes us successful?
The odds that personal and organizational goals can overlap will be better if they values and behaviors expected to reach them are elaborate and agreed. Then there is an acceptance and sometimes even one enthusiasm about what the organization stands for and its long-term goals. If that trip feels "right", the opportunities will be engaging individual goals which also leads towards the goal of the journey greater.
Do organizations succeed with goal management? Some yes, but among areas where management, with or without consultants, often goes astray, goal management must be one of the top candidates. Yesbox do not think it is due to lack of either knowledge or will. It is rather about the organizational world meeting the personal world and in it one of the most complex that exists in the universe: The human brain
Surveys show that most of us want to have written down personal goals. We move in a direction that "feels" right and we meet different phases in life with the help of the upbringing, education and the relationships we have created. At some point in life, we come to an "unknown" place, where established habits, thoughts and actions no longer give the outcome we feel we want. Here and there we are forced to confront uncertainty and delusion. Read more about goals.
How are individual goals set?
Surveys show that most of us want to have written down personal goals. We move in a direction that "feels" right and we meet different phases in life with the help of the upbringing, education and the relationships we have created. At some point in life, we come to an "unknown" place, where established habits, thoughts and actions no longer give the outcome we feel we want. Here and there we are forced to confront uncertainty and delusion.
Many, not least younger, employees who have high expectations of their employers in terms of personal development and who risk "voting with their feet" if they do not feel that they are listened to.
Yesbox wants to develop everyone's ability to think in terms of personal development goals through the annual The value dialogue. Based on what is important for you you get the opportunity to choose areas and formulate goals around these that you feel you want to achieve. Our experience of The value dialogue is that many are surprised by the areas they have chosen as important and also what power it gives to set personal development goals in these areas. This "superpower" gives energy to change behaviors and habits, both privately and at work. An organization that is able to utilize the employees' "superpowers" has a lot to gain:
- An insight into which values are perceived as most important by the employees
- A map of what behaviors the employees themselves want to change in order to achieve their development goals
- A chance to distribute organizational goals so that they largely correspond to the individuals' personal development goals
Although not all personal development goals will lead to the organization achieving its goals, it may be worth listening to what those personal goals are. Can the organization then, via the person's manager, clarify in what way they try to meet each employee and perhaps also "make a deal" to support something that is outside as long as employees set up the business goals they are assigned, it builds a relation where both parties feel that they are getting stronger from it.
There is another point in finding out what the individual goals are. Studies show that the more consistent individual goals are between individuals in a team, the greater trust because what the team does together will lead to the achievement of individual goals. Quite natural: If the majority of a team shares individual goals, the work will be characterized by trying to achieve these goals, it will be more natural to help each other, and you will be less suspicious that some have a "hidden" agenda to develop themselves , perhaps at the expense of the joint teamwork.
If there is one thing our complex brain is sensitive to, it is relationships and how the rules of the game in a group work. The more the own person is confirmed for who they are, the clearer it is where the group is going, the easier it is to create the best mix of individual freedom and at the same time support from the team when dealing with complex tasks.
It is easier to set goals than to do what it takes to reach them. There, organizations and individuals have something in common. ? One can laugh at broken New Year's resolutions, that the gym represents perfect laboratories to see how people approach goals. Extremely difficult to get times in January, easier in February and then in March no matter how easy (if only omikron could disappear).
The everyday control
Yesbox is no stranger to the problem: We struggle, like you with "important / urgent" matrices and what types of goals help us to grow best. We have respect for everyday life, and how difficult it is to have an overview of goals, what activities take us there and what activities we should change so as not to miss goals. Therefore is Yesbox also responsive to your needs, so that we constantly develop new dialogues, new metrics and new ways of visualizing the activities you plan and carry out to offer as broad a picture of what is going on as possible.
What both you and we need to understand, however, is that even if more and more data points are collected, presented and compared, it is individuals and teams who is proactive in implementing what is determined. You set your goals and certainly experienced in that dialogue how it would feel to actually achieve them - the goals became real and important. You need to return to that feeling, also in everyday control, it is that feeling that can motivate you to change behavior and to opt out of things you feel do not lead there.
Creating an overview for yourself and transparency for the team, helping with prioritization and effects of new events, for all this facilitates Yesbox the everyday governance. But, just like in a measurement, it is Dialogue you have in the team, with individual colleagues or with your boss, who takes you forward. It is in it that you get advice, support and sometimes criticism of what you have done or not done. Everyday guidance is absolutely crucial for the journey you are on to feel arduous and enriching, challenging and exciting, frustrating and inspiring.
Summary
Goal management is an ingenious word to describe both "where we are going" and to ensure that we actually get there. Goals without control become as unplanned as control without goals becomes meaningless. To succeed with goal control, great respect is required for each individual's goal images, pronounced and unspoken. When the organization's goals provide space for individual goals, you are strengthened as a team and create a strong relationship with each other - you need each other to achieve what you want. If you can then in everyday life be open and honest with your successes and failures, you will feel a support and a great meaning with your efforts to change both your private and professional lives.
"There is enough goal and meaning in our journey - but it is the road, which is worth the effort. ”
Karin Boye
