There are many reasons why people won't stay committed to their goals, but it's much easier to work with the reasons why they will stay committed. Here are four of those reasons, expressed as tactics you can deploy to make it much easier for people to keep to their goals.
TACTIC #1: Involve people to create goals that they value.
We're not robots, that unquestioningly do whatever our programmer tells us to do. We are humans, with the power of free will and choice. And no-one in their right mind is going to blindly give their time and energy (let alone their blood, sweat and tears) to achieving a goal they don't care about.
One of the best ways to get people to value their goals is to very actively involve them in choosing goals that are clearly relevant to the work they take pride in and to their personal values. For example, goals to do with trainee satisfaction and learning would matter to a trainer who took pride in their delivery.
TACTIC #2: Help people understand why their goals matter beyond their role.
We all know we work as part of a larger system, and want to know what we do is valuable in that system. So linking personal goals to company or organisational success is worth taking the time.
This means making obvious the cause-effect relationship of achieving our goals and the company acheiving its goals. For example, by trainers achieving high levels of trainee satisfaction and learning, the company vision of being a world-class training provider becomes the truth and not just a motherhood.
TACTIC #3: Allow people some sense of WIIFM from their goals.
WIIFM: what's in it for me? The WIIFM will be different for different people, but tapping into it will be the same as tapping into an endless supply of fuel to pursue the goals.
But don't think you can decide this for them! Only they can find a meaningful WIIFM for themselves. For example, by achieving goals to do with trainee satisfaction and learning, a trainer has evidence of how good a trainer they are which is great for their career, and they get the intrinsic satisfaction of knowing they've helped others.
TACTIC #4: Consistently remind people that their goals are important.
But don't just do a monthly rant about goals being important. Remind people of how important their goals are by celebrating progress toward the goals, inquiring about how progress is going, giving continual attention and energy to helping them achieve their goals.
For example, if a trainer receives higher satisfaction ratings for 3 workshops in a row, celebrate by buying them a decadent cupcake. If progress has plateaued, brainstorm with them for ideas to get moving again.
Humans are not assets.
Contrary to popular terminology, people are NOT the organisation's or company's greatest assets. People ARE the organisation or company. If we treat them like any other asset, however valuable, we miss out on the power that comes from their free will, engagement and passion in pursuing goals that simultaneously matter to them and to the organisation.
TAKING ACTION:
What's the process of setting personal and team goals in your organisation or company? Is it based on these tactics? Next time you're involved in setting personal or team goals, give deliberate attention to each of the above tactics and notice how differently people feel about their goals. Are they confident or cautious, excited or indifferent?
Monday, May 18, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
#21 Measuring For Collaboration, Not Competition
We all know that what you measure influences people's behaviour. So if you want people to collaborate to improve corporate performance, rather than compete to improve personal performance (often at the expense of corporate performance), think carefully about what you measure!
Here are 5 practical steps to help your team to measure in way that will encourage collaboration to improve corporate performance, and help put an end to measures that trigger fights about who's right and who's wrong, rather than dialogue about how to achieve shared goals.
STEP #1: Forget about measuring individual people's performance. You read it right. And yes, I know it's common practice in many organisations to do this. They believe that organisational performance is the sum of individual people's performance. But take a closer look at those organisations and you'll see that people will be doing all they can to get good personal performance reviews at the expense of what's best for their team or the organisation.
STEP #2: Make regular time each week for the team to talk about shared goals. These might be part of your existing team meetings, or you could create a quick and easy stand-up meeting to check on progress of a goal, or discuss the meaning of a new goal, or explore ideas to achieve a goal more collaboratively.
STEP #3: Never blame people for performance shortfalls - always look to the process for clues about how to improve performance. Blame threatens the dignity of the people it is thrown at, and that takes personal power away from those people. If we seriously want people engaged in improving performance, they need to feel more empowered, not more disempowered. The majority of people want to do a good job, so make it easy for them!
STEP #4: Reward people for using measures to improve performance, for looking for causes of performance shortfalls, finding potential solutions to improve performance, for learning from their performance-improving experiments. And one of the best rewards is public recognition and celebration of what they've achieved. Encourage a culture of tracking, testing and tuning together.
STEP #5: Invite and encourage people to work together to design new and more meaningful measures for the goals they share. Creating new measures through discussion helps people converge on the same understanding of the goals they share, and helps them understand each others' points of view about those goals. With a democratic process to decide what to measure, the resulting buy-in will help the measures be used for collaboration, not competition.
TAKING ACTION:
Think of a team in your organisation where more performance improvement collaboration is needed. Which of the above 5 steps do you think will help them the most? Is there an opportunity for you to talk to them about this step, or to suggest how they can make some constructive progress toward better performance?
Here are 5 practical steps to help your team to measure in way that will encourage collaboration to improve corporate performance, and help put an end to measures that trigger fights about who's right and who's wrong, rather than dialogue about how to achieve shared goals.
STEP #1: Forget about measuring individual people's performance. You read it right. And yes, I know it's common practice in many organisations to do this. They believe that organisational performance is the sum of individual people's performance. But take a closer look at those organisations and you'll see that people will be doing all they can to get good personal performance reviews at the expense of what's best for their team or the organisation.
STEP #2: Make regular time each week for the team to talk about shared goals. These might be part of your existing team meetings, or you could create a quick and easy stand-up meeting to check on progress of a goal, or discuss the meaning of a new goal, or explore ideas to achieve a goal more collaboratively.
STEP #3: Never blame people for performance shortfalls - always look to the process for clues about how to improve performance. Blame threatens the dignity of the people it is thrown at, and that takes personal power away from those people. If we seriously want people engaged in improving performance, they need to feel more empowered, not more disempowered. The majority of people want to do a good job, so make it easy for them!
STEP #4: Reward people for using measures to improve performance, for looking for causes of performance shortfalls, finding potential solutions to improve performance, for learning from their performance-improving experiments. And one of the best rewards is public recognition and celebration of what they've achieved. Encourage a culture of tracking, testing and tuning together.
STEP #5: Invite and encourage people to work together to design new and more meaningful measures for the goals they share. Creating new measures through discussion helps people converge on the same understanding of the goals they share, and helps them understand each others' points of view about those goals. With a democratic process to decide what to measure, the resulting buy-in will help the measures be used for collaboration, not competition.
TAKING ACTION:
Think of a team in your organisation where more performance improvement collaboration is needed. Which of the above 5 steps do you think will help them the most? Is there an opportunity for you to talk to them about this step, or to suggest how they can make some constructive progress toward better performance?
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