Goal Setting
Why is goal setting important? Goals help to describe success. Without taking the time to think about success, one may or may not achieve it. Goals provide challenges. A persons' (or organization's) reach should exceed one's grasp. People tend to maintain expectations, not surpass them. Thus, expectations or goals should be challenging. Goals create common tasks and processes. By having goals, a group knows what it has to do. Then members can work together on them. Tasks and relationships become further defined goals.
Goal setting can allow
- clear and specific delegation of responsibilities
- greater freedom to operate. better communication: two-way and interpersonal
- greater job satisfaction
- more diversity of services/programs, by updating and improving old programs and developing new programs
- identification of individual and organizational strengths and weaknesses
- fair and easy appraisal and evaluation of the organization
- clarification and/or development of an organizational mission or philosophy
- better morale
Although goal setting is rewarding, some difficulties do exist
- it is sometimes difficult to quantify and qualify what our goals/actions should be
- goal setting takes time - initially the members must be introduced to the process, develop necessary skills, implement procedures and record evaluations
- goal setting can be a giant verbal game of paper shuffling exercises - the process can be easily distorted
Developing goals
Describe what you want the future to be like. If developing organizational goals, try to think of at least two ways to describe the future:
- through organizational tasks or purposes
- what happens to the members
Use your organization's purpose. An organization's purpose can define what the goals need to be and then these goals can be adjusted each year. Use what members, constituents, and other interested parties suggest. By being open to feedback, one can get new ideas for improving or building goals.
Process for brainstorming goals
- allow ideas to start goals
- members should begin to talk about what they would like the group to accomplish
- let every member take part in the brainstorming. This is important for morale and cohesion. Also, members are more likely to support what they help to create
- unrealistic goals should not be weeded out until later
- when finalizing goals, make sure they are measurable
After brainstorming, prioritize the goals
place goals in order of importance. This can be difficult to do because each member has one's own idea of what is important for the group
- all members need to take part in this to feel ownership in final goals
- set a few important goals to which the group can commit rather than a laundry list of tasks or goals which may or may not be achieved.
Some different methods for prioritizing:
- have a discussion in which each member voices an opinion
- have members rank the goals on their own and then share their ideas with the group to reach consensus
- break into small groups to prioritize goals concerning different segments of the organization
After goal setting, develop plans to achieve the goals so they are more than nice words.
Develop Action Plans
If you have more than one objective, start with the one that the group considers the most important and/or complex. Develop a detailed plan for fulfilling the objective by the target date.
- identify what information, not already available, is needed to meet that objective
- identify the steps needed to accomplish the goal in the order that they need to be done
- determine what individuals or groups in the organization will be involved in the implementation of the plan, then decide who will be responsible for what phases of the action plan
- set a deadline for each step
- evaluate the goals or the people doing them periodically to check their progress and make sure members are working to achieve them
- conduct an evaluation of the goals by the end of the year; from that evaluation make recommendations for next year's group
By setting goals, developing action plans, working to fulfill them, and evaluating the process, you and your organization will be more likely to succeed in your tasks.