Setting-up Realistic and Actionable Goals for Your Company

Are you consistent about setting up realistic and actionable goals for your company?

A lot of business owners and managers set goals for their team without knowing if it’s achievable, much less what needs to be done to achieve it. These goals, no matter how good or ambitious they sound, won’t help the business grow in any way. Goals can only help a business if it is achieved, and it can’t be achieved in the first place if there’s no clear plan. The first step, then, is to create fool-proof goal setting steps that could be cascaded into everyone in your company.

Goal Setting Guidelines

1. Goals must be clearly defined. It should clearly state what needs to be accomplished, how it should be done and the resources or people needed in making it happen.
2. Goals must be measurable and quantifiable so that you can evaluate your success or failure. If the goal is not easily measured, such as ‘increasing employee satisfaction’, then you should use a number scale to measure it. For instance, an employee survey with a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, can be used to measure this goal.
3. Goals are time- bound. It has a beginning and end date. You can also set milestones to help you track minor accomplishments that contribute to the goal.
4. All the goals you set for your company should benefit everyone, even the lowest rank and file employee. The goals should list how each employee on every level may benefit from it. Your employees won’t be keen on helping you achieve it unless you clearly state what’s in it for them.

Business goals setting steps are also essential to attain any target you’ve set for the company. Even sales targets and revenue targets can become easier to accomplish with the help of clearly defined goals.

How can Realistic and Actionable Goals Help Your Business?

• Realistic goals will help your employees to understand the quantity of work that needs to be done to reach their targets.
• Concrete goals that have a clear action plan will guide your employees on what they should do. Vague or abstract goals like “increase customer satisfaction” or “increase employee production”, without any outlined steps will leave your employees in the dark, or without any clear way to proceed.
• Achievable and realistic goals will encourage your employees to do better, especially if they know how it will benefit them.
• Seemingly impossible goals that require your employees to render 55-hour work weeks continuously are de-motivating, and very stressful. There’s also a big chance that your employees won’t be able to achieve as much as you expect, so it’s better to set milestones and realistic goals that can be achieved quickly. This will give you and your employees a taste of success, with minimal work done. Achieving success quickly and with less stress will motivate your people to work harder.

Tips for Setting Realistic Goals:

• Look at the current situation of your company. Break down bigger goals into smaller, more realistic goals.
• Consider resources needed to achieve your goal. If you are in the red, you should save your resources and prioritize whatever is the most important goal. If you can’t decide which is the most important for you, choose one goal that has the most impact on your business. This is one of the best goal setting steps for business owners who can’t seem to prioritize what they want to accomplish.
• Create only specific goals that focus on one thing. If you want to increase your profit, don’t multi-task by trying to do other tasks not related to this goal. Focus on one thing at a time.
• Evaluate and review your goals to ensure that you are on your way up. Also consider the participation of the right kind of employees while creating goal setting steps. Everyone that will play a major role in the achievement of your business’ goals should be involved in the planning.

Everyone in your business, from the C-level officers, managers, and larger community of employees will be excited and proud when a goal is set, achieved and accomplished. If you want your business to move up quickly to the next level, always consider the importance of using the right goal setting steps for your company.

About Linda Finkle

Executives in leading companies rely on Executive Coach Linda Finkle to call them on their blind spots, expand their influence and create bigger things for themselves and the companies they lead. She has coached and trained more than 2000 leaders in six countries since 2001.

Linda is described as ‘the best of both worlds in that she understands revenue pipeline management as well as running an organization day-to-day’ and ‘an invaluable resource and advisor’ by others.

Before launching Incedo Group, LLC, Linda built and managed an executive recruiting firm for more than twenty years.

Linda holds the Master Certified Coach (MCC) title from the International Coach Federation. She has been interviewed in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, US News and World Report, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal among numerous other publications.

Her book, Finding the Fork in the Road, hit the bestseller list on Amazon. You can learn more about Linda Finkle at: http://incedogroup.com/blog