How did your team do on its goals this year? Better than expected? Not as good as you had hoped? Don’t have a clue? Do you want your team results to be different at this time next year? Then it’s time for the team to establish new goals. Here’s an easy six step process to use. Make sure your team has a facilitator to help make the most of the process.
- Identify your future state
- Write down your goals
- Create an action plan to achieve your goals
- Review your goals weekly
- Celebrate your success
- Create new goals
1 and 2. Identify Your future State And Write Down Your Goals
The first thing you need to do is figure out what a year from now looks like. Here are a couple of my favorite techniques:
a. Close your eyes. Picture your team running perfectly. See the interactions and the surrounding environment. Open your eyes. Write down everything you saw in your perfect business environment. Don’t analyze the statements, write them as fast as they come to mind. When you’re out of ideas, take a look at your list. Group similar items together. Prioritize grouped items. Write one goal statement for each group of items.
b. Take a large sheet of paper and many different colored pens, crayons, etc. Draw your team as it functions today. Don’t forget to include the surrounding environment. Label this picture #1. Take another large sheet of paper and draw your team functioning a year from now. Again, don’t forget to include the surrounding environment. Label this picture #2. Compare the pictures. Write goal statements that will get you from picture #1 to picture #2.
3. Create An Action Plan To Achieve Your Goals
Once you’ve figured out where you want your team to be a year from now, it’s important to create a road map to get there. That road map is an action plan with specific actions and dates to accomplish each task. Create a template that identifies the goal, action items, tasks, and targeted completion dates. Don’t forget a status column so you can quickly identify if your team is on target, behind or complete. The template might look like this:
|
Goal |
Action Required |
Tasks To Complete |
Target Date |
Start / Finish |
Status |
Create your team action plan using this template. Keep it in a place where it will be visible, easy to review and update. I recommend that you never work on more than three goals at a time. It causes loss of focus, confusion and frustration. If you have more than three goals, good for you — just make sure that three of them are short term, 6 months or less, and the others are long term.
4. Review Your Team Goals Weekly
Going through the effort to create goals is a waste of time if you don’t track them on a regular basis. Reviewing goals is an important but not urgent activity that’s easy to procrastinate about. Once your teams implements the discipline of weekly review, you’ll be amazed at how “reactive” time turns in to “proactive” time. Review your team goals once a week and spend at least 15 minutes a day working on an activity or task that gets your team closer to goal success.
Your team will make your goals happen. Help your tean find the value in reviewing and achieving team goals by identifying a list of benefits. Capture that list on a wall chart and post it where each team member will see it (and read it) every day at least once.
5. Celebrate Your Success
This is a critical component of goal achievement. When your team accomplishes a task, completes an activity, reaches a goal….celebrate! Pat yourself on the back, go to lunch toberther or buy something that benefits the team. Get a certificate of achievement and write in big red letters: We did it! Distribute to each team member. Write each team member a thank-you card. Celebration and rewards are the fuel that will keep the team going to complete additional goals.
6. Create New Goals
As your team continues to cross those completed goals off the list, don’t forget to create new ones. Your team should always be working on at least one goal. Don’t ever stop. You’ll be amazed at what your team can achieve.
Denise O’Berry (aka ‘Team Doc’) provides tools, tips and advice to help organizations build better teams. Find out more at http://www.teambuildingtips.com
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