- Timely Objective Setting
- Golden rule: Set objective every six months, with a mid-period adjustment.
- Craft Inspiring and Realistic Objectives
- Put it on Paper
- Top-down vs. Bottom-up: Striking the Balance
- Keep It Efficient
- Celebrate Success
- ➠ Related Notion templates
- ➠ Related Management Frameworks
Is the path ahead clear and motivating for your entire team?
Hello there, motivated managers! Today, we’re delving into the mechanics of setting objectives that drive performance and development. The world is dynamic, the changes and constant, and your team has this consistent need to be motivated and engaged. One of the secret ingredients? Crystal clear objectives.
Setting objectives can be time-consuming, but as a leader, you have the full picture, and it’s one of your key responsibilities to cascade it down. The key goal here is to ensure that each employee recognises themselves in the company’s global objectives and each day feel motivated to perform and grow to help the company succeed. So, let’s get started.
Timely Objective Setting
Don’t put off setting objectives. As soon as a new period begins or a company strategy is established, get it done. Mark the period for setting and reviewing objectives, whether it’s yearly, bi-yearly, quarterly, or monthly. I would recommend twice a year, with a mid-period alignment to check progress and make adjustments if business priorities change. Make it more regular, and you may feel you are spending your time in performance reviews and validating key results. Make it less regular, and the changes in the market and the business priority will make every single objective meaningless before it’s time to review the results.
Golden rule: Set objective every six months, with a mid-period adjustment.
Craft Inspiring and Realistic Objectives
If you are reading this, you must have already heard about SMART objectives. While the model is great, it is just the starting point. Once you have made sure that the objectives you are setting answer the fundamental requirements of being specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timely, go the next level of motivating your employees. Focus on crafting objectives that inspire and empower your team members. To do so, make sure the objectives are:
- Inspirational: Employees should think, “I am here to make this happen. It’s a bit outside my comfort zone, I want to make it work”
- Oriented towards problem-solving: Tackle issues head-on. Allow room for finding solutions to problems.
- Supported by key results: Measure progress and success, link the inspiration to the performance and real results.
- Oriented towards growth & skills development: Mix business performance with building up the skills of your team. Add objectives which will help them learn a new skills, or boost a competency they have already started developing.
- Inclusive of team/company values: Go beyond performance metrics. At each point in time, there is an area you want to boost in your team. This might be collaboration, innovation, expertise, industry knowledge, customer centricity. Whatever it is, make sure you include it in the objectives you put on paper.
Oh, good point I was going to forget about.
Put it on Paper
An objective you had mentioned once in your 1:1, or during lunch break will be forgotten, dragged with time, or simply ignored. While it may sound obvious, it’s easy to forget this essential point — make sure you have one shared document (or app if your company invested in the employee experience) where objectives are written down, together with the expected key result. Writing them down will boost accountability, will make it easier to follow-up on a regular basis, and can give a good level of transparency between teams and departments if you share them.
Top-down vs. Bottom-up: Striking the Balance
Don’t go solo when setting objectives. Involving your team in the process not only ensures everyone’s on the same page but also fosters ownership and commitment. A study found that employees participating in goal-setting are 12–15% more performant than when they were not involved in setting the goals.. So, call a meeting, grab some coffee, and start brainstorming!
But it’s never that easy, is it?
Finding the right balance between top-down and bottom-up approaches depends on the autonomy and business context you provide. Use this simple matrix to define which approach to use when:
Choosing between a top-down and bottom-up approach for goal setting. By the author.
Keep It Efficient
To make the objective-setting process more efficient and effective, consider the following steps throughout the year:
- Consistently clarify business objectives: regularly make sure that your team has a solid understanding of the company’s overall goals and objectives so that they can relate and helps you work together as a team towards the same targets.
- Regularly review objectives, not just once a year: establish a routine of regular check-ins throughout the year. Frequent discussions help keep the objectives relevant and aligned with the big picture.
- Structured goal-setting process: Implement a clear, step-by-step approach to objective setting that encourages collaboration between managers and team members. Here’s a suggested workflow:
Timeline to set the objective in a week by involving your team members. By the author.
Aiming to complete this process within a week helps maintain momentum and keeps your team focused on their goals. By implementing these strategies, you can create a more efficient and engaging objective-setting process that fosters a shared sense of purpose and drives performance within your team.
Celebrate Success
When your team achieves their objectives, take time to celebrate! Recognising and rewarding hard work boosts morale and reinforces the value of setting and achieving clear goals. After all, everyone loves a celebration.
Setting clear objectives is instrumental in driving your team’s performance and development. By setting timely goals, crafting inspiring objectives, striking a balance between top-down and bottom-up approaches, collaborating with your team, maintaining efficiency, and celebrating success, you’ll create an environment where your team can thrive. Go ahead and empower your team to reach new heights!
➠ Related Notion templates
➠ Related Management Frameworks
