Yes, It's That Time of Year Again ...

3 Simple Steps For Approaching Yearly Objective Setting

Now is the time of year when managers and employees all around the world sit down to discuss employee’s plans for the coming year. Normally, as in previous years, you would follow your company’s prescribed yearly goal setting process like an automaton.

Not this year.

This year you are daring to be different! Instead of blindly following your HR department’s policy, you're going to focus on these three basic rules instead.

Your employees don't require a formulaic goal and target setting process to perform at a high level. Instead they need straight talk and clear direction from you, their manager. If your Human Resources department and/or company performance management tool will let you (and even if they won’t), be bold and throw out that old scientific approach to target setting and re-focus on the basics. You'll save time in the long run (and your employees just might thank you at the end of the year).

“Your employees need straight talk and clear direction from you, their manager.”

1. Set your expectations clearly

Be obvious. Your expectations don't need to be detailed, but they need to be more explicit than "do your job better". Your employees do not need you to micromanage their job, but they do need to know what you expect from them.

By not being explicit, you are forcing them to attempt to read your mind, which will likely result in wrong conclusions and poor performance.

• Create and deliver presentation on topic X during Q1 (example of a good goal)
• Improve communication skills (example of a bad goal)

Goal setting is a critical leadership tool, so it will be covered in more detail in a separate post. For now, keep the SMART goal criteria in mind when setting goals and objectives for your employees and you'll do fine.

2. Empower them to fulfill your expectations

You hired them for a reason. Your employee wants to succeed as much as you want them to, so empower them to do awesome work. A key component of empowerment is knowing how far your authority extends, so tell them. Or better yet, jointly define their areas of authority.

• What areas do you fully delegate to them?
• What are the boundary areas where you you want to be notified (perhaps of odd or special circumstances)?
• What are the off-limit areas where they need to seek permission from you to move forward?

In some areas, such as financial decisions, limits may be easy to define (e.g. "you can approve expenses up to $10,000 USD"), but in many areas of operations, the boundary line is likely much harder to define, and often continues moving with time and experience.

Let's look at a real-life example:

Rich was a first-level line manager that I had recently promoted. Rich was in charge of a new function within the department. To a large extent, how he structured the operations of his unit were up to him, so where did we draw the boundaries?

• How his unit achieved their goals was completely up to him and his team. Anything that had to do with his unit's internal functions were completely delegated to Rich, and I let him know that I would back him up on any decisions he made.
• Due to the work that Rich's unit performed, they had several interfaces outside of our organization. Anytime Rich had a new engagement with an outside organization, I asked that he informs me whenever a new engagement was started.
• One of Rich's responsibilities was to order lab equipment that was needed by the organization. As part of the this responsibility, he was given a yearly budget that he could spend on equipment. If Rich needed to go above, or would spend less than his budget, he needed to consult me and get approval.

For complicated operations or poorly defined roles, creating a delegation map might be helpful.

3. Tell them what you think of their performance

To achieve optimum performance, your employees need to know how well you think they're performing. Together, you should agree on a regular feedback cycle and then make it a priority to stick to it. Once the year gets going, it's so easy to down prioritize the regular feedback sessions in favor of dealing with whatever urgent issue pops up that day.

If you don't already, make it a habit to stand by your commitments and treat employee feedback as a top priority.

Most employees do not care if their feedback is documented formally, but they do care that you give it to them. Feedback is the most important of the three areas, because with high quality feedback, your employee can derive your expectations (#1) and the boundaries of their authority (#2). However, no matter how much self-introspection they do, it cannot replace high quality feedback.

Much like goal setting, gathering and giving high quality feedback is critical leadership tool and will be covered in detail in a separate post.

Conclusion

The start of the new year is a good time to discuss with your employee and frame the year with their future accomplishments in mind. Remember, this conversation is all about them, not you, your unit, or your company. Keep it personal and let them know that you care.

Take care, and I'll talk to you next time.