Setting goals with your team

This month is all about setting new goals for businesses and individuals. If businesses are setting goals: these could be irrelevant to individuals working in the business. In this week’s Superstar Communicator Podcast  guest interviewee Neil Simon and I discuss how to set goals with your team, so their resonate for them.

When business owners or managers are setting goals, they might not be relevant to specific individuals – or even departments. Yet as a leader, team leader or manager, we want to ensure everyone is fully engaged with any targets or goals for 2016. In the latest podcast, Neil Simon shares his top tips for doing this. Listen here.

Speaking and discussing goals is crucial to achieving the targets. Written documents or even presentations (or videos) are not going to resonate in the same way, and in fact the communication style is passive in that you are receiving information rather than contributing.

Neil recommends the following:

• When the company goals and targets are set, ensure there is discussion around this, to ensure the goals are in line with the company and that they are accountable.
• When they are presented to the team, there should be collaboration and discussion as to how to implement and reach the goals. Neil mentioned that the company goals might not be clearly applicable to a specific department. Neil suggests a workshop style meeting where members of the team are able to contribute ideas – including in a discussion format, so they feel engaged with the process; accountable and engaged.
• Finally it is important for each of your team to have their own personal goals; partly professional development ones, but also related to the company goals and targets.

Remember to listen to Neil’s tips in the podcast here.

Setting goals with your team is more layered than personal goals and doing this in a positive way, is an effective way to engage and motivate your team. Good luck.

Susan Heaton-Wright is delivering a one day masterclass The Executive Presence Masterclass  on 21st January 2016, in central London. Part of the masterclass is about developing outstanding communication skills as a leader or senior manager. We’d love to see you there. More details here.