The Art of Setting the Right Goals and Achieving Them Be open to all---failures, changes and innovation

The new financial year has started, and it's a good time to start setting or working on your team/company goals if you already haven't. The key lies in working on the right strategy. A strategy always begins with goal-setting, as clear and planned goals lead to the accurate implementation of processes further leading to higher productivity and profitability.

The key is setting these goals right, let's look at some ways to doing that:

Create Individual and Team Goals

Usually, an HR person begins strategizing with the company goals, moves towards the team goals and then comes the employee/individual goals. Change the process, go in reverse order: Start with individual goals. Understand your employee's strengths, weaknesses, which includes understanding the gap between the employee's KRAs and the company's requirements. Here, besides covering the bases, you are also motivating the employee, which would lead to a positive start on the employee's part to the project/year. The next step is team goals. This should always be in alignment with the organization's goals.

Set aStructure and SupportSystem

Review your current structure to check if it supports the process. You can do that based on the parameters below:

• How often is the evaluation process conducted?
• Do the employees receive regular feedbacks?
• Does the process help capitalize on the employee's potential and also help develop new skills?
• Is the appraisal given in an unbiased manner?

Once you have received the above responses, customize the same as per the present requirements and then create a structure accordingly. You need a support system as a backbone to the structure: by this, we mean regular training opportunities, mentor training initiatives, external coaching in form of knowledge sharing, networking events and so on. Ensure that your employee and his team know that they have all the support they require to achieve their goals.

Create Subjective Measures

The above was all about measuring the growth through objective measures, however, it's a must to create a balance between objective and subjective measures. Align the employee's goals with that of the company's values; boost the employee's morale on a regular basis by sharing positive and also critical feedbacks, promotions, referrals, employee-of-the-month initiatives; and above all, positive customer feedbacks. The more positive feedback your customer gives, the more in place your strategy is, which means the goals are also working efficiently.

Set Deadlines and Track Progress

The objective and subjective measures are your parameters to gauge the performance of your employees. Beyond this, you also need to do periodic check-ins to keep a track of the progress on a regular basis. Without these, employees and teams can lose momentum or worse spend months moving in the wrong direction. Create a schedule which could be weekly, monthly or quarterly, depending on the timeline that has been decided for the organization's goals to track the progress. The other way this would help is that the employees would be aware that the processes are constantly being monitored leading to a smoother flow of work.

Be Receptive to Failures and Innovation

Finally, be open to all ̶ failures, changes and innovation. If you face a gap in between the results delivered and expected, please check if it's a drawback with the process rather than the employee. In the beginning, be receptive to all the failures and making changes as and when necessary. Take cumulative feedback when it comes to implementing a change ̶ the employee, team leader, and the top management. At times, your employee may give you suggestions that are more aligned with the ground level challenges, which may result in developing a more productive process than the earlier one. Also, a discussion across the board keeps everyone involved and helps in getting the necessary buy-in to implement the change that will also support the company's overall growth.

Get the above steps in place, and before you know it you will be driving a process that shall help you to not only meet your targets but beat them as well, with a goal-oriented process.