Setting goals with your employees

When it's time for annal appraisals remember to spend time talking about career development and personal goals. Try to look at appraisals as a personal development tool...key word - PERSONAL!!

Give your employees time to discuss their own personal achievements and goals.
Find a way that you can help and support them to achieve their goals and become successful.

Inspired by this quip from Dilbert:

The surprising truth about what motivates us

Daniel Pink is the author of Drive which can be purchased from Amazon (take a look at my Amazon link on the right hand side - the book is £4.50).

I was gifted his book by a good friend, which was a great eye opener...thanks Christian!

There are two videos below that deliver the same message but I would watch both if you have time. It is very interesting to consider Motivation 2.0 and what we have been used to for many years. We all know that things are changing and we know in our hearts that something needs to change. Dan Pink makes it easier for us to understand what truly motivates people...and FYI, it's not money!

I can personally relate to it all in a big way, as an employee and as a leader/manager.

You can view other RSA Animate videos via The RSA Website.

TED.com

Thanks,

Chris.

Getting to know your employees

Getting to know the people that work for you is great for building and maintaining your relationship with your team. I truly believe that a happy and engaged team will deliver the best customer service. So it is vital, as a team leader, that you get involved with your team and really get to know them. This is not a prescription, this is what works for me. Your approach has to be honest and something that you believe in. Also, you will not be able to win hearts just by doing these things, your message and approach has to be consistent at all times, throughout everything you do.

I hope that I can give you a couple of tools to use at team meetings which, done properly and facilitated correctly, will take you no more than 15 minutes and the information you get back from your team will be rich and powerful. Your role as team leader is to facilitate the discussion and you should not be answering the questions for them, but asking the team probing and open questions to get information out of them.

It is crucial that everyone gets the opportunity to speak, which you can make sure happens, and try to manage the forum so that no one person overshadows the discussion.

What I do is get small teams together of no more than 10 people and perform two exercises to find out what motivates the team and what they truly believe in.

What you'll need is a flip chart or whiteboard, some pens...and an open mind!

Motivators

Find out what really motivates your team. Facilitate discussion around the following questions: -

• What motivates you to come to work everyday?
• Why do you get up every morning to come to work?
• Why do you bother coming to work, and why should anyone care?

These questions are just examples, however, it can be tough to get a response sometimes and that's where the last question comes in. It is a little harsh but gets people thinking about what REALLY motivates them and will illicit a response from people. Money always comes up, because at the end of the day the majority of us need a job, at the basic level, to pay bills and mortgages, but that will hopefully not be the only motivator. What you will hopefully find is that your team actually enjoy coming to work and enjoy the company of those around them.

Team Values

• What is important to you?
• What do you believe in?
• Why do you do what you do?
• What do you enjoy most about your work?

What you are looking for here is what the people in the team believe to be true to who they are, their morals as humans, what they believe is the correct way to behave in their working environment and throughout life.

It is important that there is a general consensus around the points made by the team. As the facilitator you can see who agrees and who disagrees with different statements and it is always interesting to take get step back at the end and summarise the results with the team.

The result

At the end of the meeting what you will be left with is a list of things that motivate your team and a list things that they really feel strongly about and what they feel is important to them.

Example results: -

Motivators	Values
Money (£)	Taking pride in our job
Job satisfaction	Everyone does their job to the standard expected
To be part of a team	We show respect for each other
To meet and interact with people	We take responsibility for our own actions
To develop personally	We are honest with each other
	To provide a great customer service

...but what can we do with this information?

At the very least you have engaged with your team and had some personal interaction with them. They will also be thinking a little more about their job and why they really enjoy their work, which will hopefully have positive connotations.

One great thing you can do with this information is to put it into a statement which represents what the team is all about...for example: -

"Our team love coming to work everyday to provide the best service we can. We all know what is expected of us, we work hard and take real pride in what we do. We truly believe in honesty and have great respect for each other...and that is what being part of this team is all about."

You could print it out and display it in the work area so people can relate to it, it could be their value statement.

You could also reword the statement slightly and use it to attract new employees through a job advert or at another point in the selection process; prospective employees will then be able to really understand how the team operate and be able to decide whether or not they have the same values and can fit in with the team.

The key part of the process is that the team agreed on the points they made together and therefore it is unique to them. It is now clear what it means to be part of the team and everyone knows why they do what they do.

I really hope that you find this useful.

Thanks for reading,

Chris.

SMART Objectives

I mentioned in my previous post, my bucket list, that I think it is important to think SMART when setting objectives. Constructing SMART objectives will allow you to have very clear objectives and goals. It also allows you to take time to think about what you want. You may work through this and at the end decide that what you want to do is not relevant, or you cannot manage it and decide to take another course of action.

The SMART tool also allows you to take big ideas and break them down to bite-sized and more manageable goals. A SMART objective will be very clear and provide you and your team with a good understanding of what, where, when, why and how this goal is to be achieved. The result is an individual or team who can start off with the correct intentions and have a really good understanding of what is expected. It also minimises confusion and questions, allowing your empowered team members to get on with achieving.

I have used this tool for various types of things: -

1. Setting basic business objectives
2. Setting KPI's (Key Performance Indicators)
3. Delegating tasks and projects to subordinates
4. Setting personal goals (for example, new year resolutions)

SMART objectives can be defined as: -

S - Specific

A specific but brief description of the objective - i.e. what is the desired outcome?

M - Measurable

What are you going to use to measure performance? How will you know you have achieved anything?

A - Agreeable

Do all parties agree to the objective and understand why this is to be achieved?

R - Relevant

Is this goal relevant to higher level organisational objectives? Does this fit in with our business?

T - Time-bound

At this point you can agree a deadline, or milestones depending on the size of the project/goal/objective.

There are other versions of this out there including the 'SMART +' tool which can be defined as: -

S - Specific

M -

Measurable - The Parent Ego State - "How can I measure this, how will I know I have achieved the desired outcome?"

Manageable - The Adult Ego State - "How will I be able to manage this, can I manage this?"

Motivation - The Child Ego State - "Do I want to do this, does it interest me, am I motivated to achieve this goal?"

A - Agreeable

R - Relevant

T - Time-bound

As you can see this tool expands on the 'M' and includes three criteria allowing you to satisfy three ego states.

A Worked Example of the SMART + tool: -

Specific -

To respond effectively and listen to my customers.

Measurable

To respond to ALL customer responses.

Manageable

I will have to schedule time in my diary to concentrate on this, but it is manageable because it is a vital part of our business.

Motivational

To build a better relationship with my customers, to encourage more customer feedback, to learn from my customers.

Agreeable

Agreeable based upon the above - a vital part of business survival and growth.

Relevant

We are a customer service organisation, so completely relevant to what we do, and fits in directly with all organisational objectives.

Time-bound

The customer should receive a response from me within 5 working days of receiving the response.

Now you have something very clear - this basically details that you are going set time aside to respond to ALL customer responses within 5 days because you agree that it is vital for your business to be successful, and that you want to. Most people start and finish with the first point.

As you work though the SMART + tool you will probably start thinking of all the possibilities and have lots of relevant ideas, make sure you write them all down.

What's next?

You can then go on to break down each statement above, for example: -

• You will have to think about where you customer responses come from, i.e. Email, letter, verbal, etc.


• You will than have to decide how you are going to respond, i.e. by Email, letter, telephone, in person. This will depend upon the feedback you get, if it is severe you may want to personalise and have direct contact with the customer, you may decide that you want to do this for all responses. Also, you need to make sure that the language you use in response to your customer is delivering the message set out by your organisation.


• Based on how much feedback you receive, you will have to decide how much time it is going to take you to respond.


• You may think about using Trip Advisor, Facebook or Twitter (or other social media tools) to keep in touch with your customers.


• A 5 day response may be unrealistic and you may have to delegate the task to someone else or work as a team.


• You may also have some blue sky thinking about how you can encourage more feedback from your customers, which may kick start more mini-projects (just go back to the start of the SMART + tool and start with your fresh objective)


• You may now decide that you want to design an effective customer response (ECR) for your department or organisation.

I am happy for you to get in touch with me either by email or by commenting on this post. Let me know if you use the tool or if you need help delivering an objective, I am happy to help!

Feel free to download and use my SMART + Delegation Tool which I use to delegate tasks to those in my team.

I hope that you find this useful!

Thanks for reading,

Chris.