I have a question for you, is there a difference between a goal and an objective? Many people get confused by this. After this video, you will be able to differentiate between a goal and an objective. Develop effective performance objectives. And understand the roles of accountabilities and goals when writing objectives. So, let's go back to my question. What is the difference between a goal and an objective? As you thought about it, perhaps you came up with some of the answers I did. I actually went to the dictionary to look for the definitive answer. A goal has to do with time, measurement, and how specific you want to be. A goal tends to be longer-range where the objectives tends to be short or mid-range. So it may be a quarterly goal, an annual goal. In the performance review process especially, they should be quarterly and annually. They tend to be more broad, general, and generic. Big picture, sort of where am I going, what's my destination. Specific, this is the specific steps in time that we want to look at. So using that example, a broad goal might be, I want to go drive cross country and take a road trip. The specifics would be, how far I will go in each day. So really break that down. Goals sometimes are not measurable or tangible. And objectives need to be measurable and tangible, because we will be holding people accountable for certain behaviors. So let me give you an example. You're taking a course in HR manager. Your goal may be to be a successful HR manager. So what would an objective be that would help you get to be that successful manager? Let me give you an example. I would probably complete the HR People Management Certification Program from the U of M. That would be an effective tool. So, see the difference. One is an overall career goal, I want to be in a certain position. The other one has a specific thing. And as we talk about objectives in a moment, I would probably even put a date on the end of this. I would complete the program at the U of M by the end of September, 2016. That'll give me more accountability. If I just say completed, it's too general. So let's look at what goes into performance and some objectives and goals. Let's deep down, a little deeper dive here. So pause and reflect for a moment. What do I need to focus on when measuring performance results? I think there's several things you want to look at to be effective. You can look at accountabilities. You want to look at the goals. You want to look at objectives. And finally, you want to look at some performance standards. So we're going to discuss all of these in the lesson to follow. So let's dig down again. Accountabilities. Why are these important? This is the information about the job. So when you begin the performance discussions, we want to agree about what the job is all about. We also want to have broad areas of responsibility, these are helpful in developing goals. What am I responsible for overall? You'll often find these types of things in the job description. If you don't have up-to-date job descriptions, or you don't have them in your positions, I would really recommend you start with that in any performance management process, because they are sort of the guidelines of what I'm going to be held accountable for. So make sure you have good job descriptions. These are the day to day activities. This is what you're measuring me on, am I doing things day to day that are correct? Not long term, short term, but we want to agree upon these. And lastly, they are not performance objectives. These are basic duties and accountabilities I have at my job. But in a performance management process, we really want to make sure that we agree upon that so we have no differences of opinion what it is I'm supposed to be doing. They're also an effective tool if you have differences of agreement, where you can clarify that before beginning the performance process. Another thing to think about the role of goals, we defined them a few moments ago, but what of the role in the performance process and objective setting? You want to use long and short term goals when looking at performance. Things that you'll want to do is this, employees should have some long term goals for development, and some short term goals for immediate performance improvement. They should be looked at via the department goals. They should feed into it. So if the department has certain goals, the employees goals should be in alignment with that. And finally, the department goals should be in alignment with the organization. Effective organizations have that alignment of goals from top to bottom. Let me give you an example. You may work in an organization this year says, we want to increase our customer focus. We've done some surveys and we're not doing as good as we want with the customers. So that's a goal, is to increase customer satisfaction by 20%. That trickles down into your department. You would have that same type of goal. Then you set the employee goals to align with that. So what is their role in increasing satisfaction? That they should have a goal on how we're going to help increase satisfaction, wherever they are in the organization. They could be, I've used the examples in the past, they could be the receptionist. Receptionist is the first person people see. They have a strong role in that, so make them part of that goal process. Once you've done the goals and set them in some alignment, let's look at developing objectives. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you really get down into the details. So we've talked about these being more short term, you've gotta be able to measure them, and they need to be specific. And also, we talked about time bound. So let's look at objectives. How do we determine them? What's the process you want to use? I'll give you a couple of tips here. You start out with a purpose, what we're really trying to do here is to identify the desired performance outcomes. What is the end in mind? And then I want to link those to the impact on the organization. Employees feel good when they see how their performance impacts the organization's success. That gives commitment and is very motivating. So if I know how my role, as customer service as the previous example, improves the overall impact of the organization, that's motivating. It also does a couple of other things. It gives us focus. We really know what's important in the organization. I know what the goals are and what I'm shooting for. Otherwise, from a motivational standpoint, I don't know if I make a difference. Expectations. This is one I've talked about before and I'll talk about again. Clear expectations. Objectives, really, really drill down and let, specifically what's expected of the employee. And if I don't know what's expected of me, it's hard for me to meet expectations when there are none. Measurability, this goes back to accountability. Typically, if you don't measure something, employees think it doesn't matter. So if I tell people to go out and work harder but there's no sort of expectations and measurability, pretty difficult for them to hit that goal. So these are three key things you want to think about when looking at objectives. Let's look at some specific things now that you should be doing with objectives. So how are you going to meet your targets? One is, specific and clearly communicated. Why do I say, clearly communicated? I've worked many, many times with managers, where they develop goals and they don't clearly communicate them. This gives focus and clarity to what the employee is supposed to be doing. We're all on the same page then. The other part is challenging but achievable. This is another one that again, missed the mark. Goals that are not stretch goals, you may have heard that term, really motivate the employee because I'm going to get better, and that's the whole idea behind performance management. I'm going to be better at the end of the year because I've challenged myself, I've pushed myself. But if I don't believe I can achieve them, my motivation is low. So we want to motivate people by making sure they're in the target range but not so hard that it can't be achieved. Another thing is mutually agreed upon and reviewed. You might wonder why I put the reviewed there. Again, worked with too many [LAUGH] managers who think they agree, but they don't review them and go over them throughout the process. This gives, again, commitment. If both of us agree where we're going, we both agree they're achievable and clear, you're going to have a much better shot of having a fine employee performance that year. Significant. By this I mean meaning. It should have some significant. It could be back to they contribute to the corporate goals and how I make a difference. It could be a personal thing where you're developing my career. Perhaps I want to, using the example of moving to HR, I want to be an HR manager. So significant to me because I know that you care about growing my career and there's meaning in that goal. I'm going to be much more committed to that goal if it's significant to me. Limited number. People talk about, what's the right number of objectives and goals? You want focus here. Most people that I talk to over the years say three to five. And most people lean toward the three. The reason is, you want to be back to the achievable. If I have 10 or 20 goals, there's no focus, there's no depth. So we did a limited number. What is it you really want me to focus on and get better on this year? That's why I recommend that three, no more than five, range. But I would prefer three personally. Time frame, if you don't tell me the time frame, I don't know, from an accountability standpoint, where I'm going. Put down there that you need it by the end of the quarter. I alluded to it a few moments ago, if I wanted to contribute to my goal of an HR manager, I would complete the HR management course. But I would do it by a certain time, October, September, whenever is comfortable, but you need a time frame for accountability. And lastly, flexible. We live in a fast paced world. Goals that I set in January may be out of date by June or July. You want to be able to review them, and when you need to tweak them, tweak them, because you want the person to be successful. Don't be afraid to change the goals if the circumstances in the organization dictate that the employee needs to go in another direction. Don't be rigid on these. A couple other things. I'm going to give you some examples. We talked about being specific. This one says grow accounts. So if my manager comes in and says I want you to grow accounts, let me ask you a question. If I grow the accounts by one over the course of the year, did I grow the accounts? Yes I did, I met the objective, right? Now, I'm a smart manager. She told me to grow the business accounts by 20% at the end of the year. So, what did she do here? One, she specified business accounts. She specified 20%, and by the end of the year. This is a much better objective obviously to grow accounts. Let me give you some other examples. Cut expenses, by how much? Well, again, I have a really good manager. Cut expenses by 10% by end of first quarter. I know where I'm going on this one, and if it's 9%, I didn't meet my objective. So I really have clarity and focus. Eliminate errors. This is often used with perhaps an administrative person. So you can use goals or objectives for any area. So here I'm going to ask, reduce number of errors in scheduling to 1 per quarter. So maybe I have an administrative assistant that's always messing up my schedule. We now have some clarity. And you'll notice I put errors to 1. I don't expect anyone to be perfect necessarily but we now have clarity on what's acceptable performance and what's not. Another one might be for sales, increase client meetings. I'm going to ask you to do face to face meetings. So, again, you can see very specific. Not phone calls, not Skype, I want face to face meetings by 10% quarterly. If I wanted Skype, I would change that as well. So again, make them fit your circumstances. If you're a global company, this may be have Skype meetings. Eliminate complaints, again, this could come at all areas of the organization. But, yeah, we all tell people eliminate complaints, I don't want to hear these anymore. But let's be specific. Decrease customer complaints by 10% annually. Give a specific objective. And finally, one for personal development. I love these kind of goals because it's too easy to look at sales, customer service, complaints. But, what do goal do you have for your employees to work on their development? So, let's look at one. Build and propose a new leadership development plan by the end of first quarter. So this could be an individual goal for myself, what am I going to do to become a better leader? Or this could be one, if I was a training professional, to develop one for the organization. So again, you can see a lot of excellent ways to look at goals. Make them specific, and they will be effective.
