All too often, people working in operational roles see strategy as something that doesn\u2019t affect them; they are just there to do their jobs. But how do organizations know that everyone is working towards the same overall goals? How do you, as a manager, make sure that everybody\u2019s contribution counts? The answer lies in making sure there is a clear line of sight between an individual\u2019s performance objectives and the organization\u2019s strategic plan, so that everyone can see how their contribution affects the success of an organization.<\/p>
Managing performance through personal objectives is by no means a new concept, and you may be familiar with the use of SMART (specific, measurable, achieveable, relevant, and time-bound) objectives. However, you may not take the next step of linking objectives to organizational goals. The effect of this is that your team members may not see the connection between their activities and the success of the organization. The result may be that they lack commitment, or they may not work conscientiously.<\/p>\n\n
A story goes that a cleaner sweeping a floor at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was once asked what he did for a living. He explained that he put men on the moon. He realized that although his job played only a small part in the whole, it was nevertheless a necessary part and that if he failed to do it properly, others would be affected.<\/p>\n\n
The first place to start when considering personal objectives is your organization\u2019s strategy. Does it aim to develop new products or services, or perhaps to enter new markets? Is your organization in a climate of growth, consolidation or decline?<\/p>
For example, suppose you worked for an organization which sold mobile telephones and telephone services. As so many people already have mobile telephones, organizations like the one you work for need to persuade customers to upgrade their handsets and contracts regularly. Your organization\u2019s strategy is therefore to bring new products and services to a (largely) existing market.<\/p>
Your organization\u2019s strategy should then be translated into a number of department goals and objectives in order to help the various parts of the organization focus on their necessary contributions. Because keeping existing customers is important, all of the departments in your organization should help maintain and improve customer satisfaction. For example:<\/p>
In our example, you might manage a team in a client services area, with responsibility for answering telephone queries from clients experiencing billing problems. Your team might have objectives to resolve a number of complaints, to the customers\u2019 satisfaction, within a fixed timescale.<\/p>
Your department manager might have an objective like this:<\/p>
The purpose of your manager\u2019s objective is to improve customer service. This meets the department\u2019s overall goal and contributes to customer satisfaction and customer retention. <\/p>
Your own objective should support your department manager\u2019s objective and might read like this:<\/p>
Then, when you set objectives for your team members, you should write them to support your own objectives as well as those of your department. So, for example, one of your team members might have an individual objective which reads like this:<\/p>
You should consider making the link between the objectives explicit, by recording in the objective which departmental and organizational targets it supports. By applying this link to all objectives, you can align everyone\u2019s performance towards the overall goal and your team members will have a clearer understanding of their contribution to the organization\u2019s strategic objectives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How do organisations know that everyone is working towards the same overall goals? And how do you make sure that everybody\u2019s contribution counts? We outline the importance of ensuring there is a clear line of sight between individual performance objectives and the organisation\u2019s strategic plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"product-content-category":[7102,6999],"product-content-type":[2580],"reading-time":[5167],"class_list":["post-57658","product-content","type-product-content","status-publish","hentry","product-content-category-planning-3","product-content-category-goal-setting-2","product-content-type-article","reading-time-3-minutes"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n