Individual goals
Once you’ve created the company’s near-term goals, you need to use your resources efficiently to attain them. A key means of doing this is to ensure that each individual has goals that relate to your company goals. Here’s Mike again, talking about just that with one of his new employees.
“You can see now that I have a vision for the Company, and that my vision drives the creation of our near-term goals and the goals for everyone on the team. We have goals for the year, for the quarter, sometimes even for the week. Here’s what this looks like in a simple diagram.
Owners’ Vision Drives the Goals
“It looks simple on paper, but we put lots of thought into all the activities represented by that little drawing. For example, one of the items in my vision is to have a company that encourages all employees to take as much responsibility as they can handle. I want employees who always push me and push each other to excel. And I want them to lead, not follow, whenever they can.
“Our annual goals, on the other hand, are more closely focused. They usually pertain to a specific level of performance for the coming year. Next year, for example, we want to make 8 percent net profit. This is one of our company goals, and everybody is focused on achieving it.
“Individual goals are owned by each employee. Everybody has goals that they establish with the help of their supervisor. Every employee finds this out when they work with their supervisor. And those goals must help the company reach its overall goals. We want all the sled dogs to pull in the same direction.
“Let me show you how we do this. Let’s go back to that item in my vision that I described to you—the one where I want all the employees to take as much responsibility as possible.
“One of our employees is a very talented new manager. But he has never had responsibility beyond his current level. We think that he can go way beyond his current level, and we want to help him. So, one of his personal goals by year end is to create and implement a training program for all supervisors, and the managerial level that reports to him. We believe that by creating this program he will actually grow faster as a manager, because he’ll need to know the information extremely well in order to teach it to others. Creating the course will also improve his organizational and presentation skills.”
As an excellent manager himself, Mike will work frequently with this new manager to ensure that he achieves his goals. Mike may only need to touch base with the manager for limited time each week, but his interactions will ensure that the manager’s actions are well directed and executed. We’ll talk more about these weekly “One-on-One” meetings in a later section; they’re an important factor in the success of a company such as Mike’s.
Now we can look at these goals from the other direction as described by Mike. When we add up everyone’s individual goals, they should achieve the company goals. And the company goals should move the company closer to the owner’s vision.
In a diagram, all the individual goals add first to the department or business unit goals, which collectively then add to the company goal. Achieving the company goal, created for perhaps only the current fiscal year, moves the company closer to the company vision. It looks like this:
Goals Move the Organization Toward the Vision
Here’s another way to think about all this. Imagine that you had a goal to place a heavy monument on top of a mountain. You knew that if you got all of your friends together to help that you could achieve this vision. But there wouldn’t be any place for slackers. Nobody could just look busy while not directly helping.
You might consider several ways to accomplish this. For example, you might build a road up to the top of the mountain and truck the monument to the top. Alternatively, you might merely clear a path, put the monument on a sledge, and pull it up by brute force. Finally, you might somehow acquire a helicopter, train someone to fly it, and airlift the monument to the top.
Regardless of which of these three strategies you chose, everyone in the group would have a specific position, with specific individual goals, to get the monument to the top. When everyone performed their role successfully, the overall goal would be achieved. Simple, huh?
As with the company goals, there should be clear criteria for establishing individual goals. Here they are (looking suspiciously like the criteria for company goals):
- Directly related to fulfilling the Company Goals.
- Challenging.
- Reasonable.
- Measurable.
- No more than three in total.
- Established at least yearly (and preferably more often).
Here are some examples of individual goals that do not meet the criteria. Once again, our job here is to turn these well-intentioned thoughts into solid unambiguous goals.
Let’s return now to the goals and vision diagram, reproduced below. When you craft company and individual goals (and perhaps department goals) that are pointed to your vision and that are all in alignment, you ensure that everyone in your organization is doing the right things to move you in the right direction.
Goals Move the Organization Toward the Vision
