Achieving Goals_ Define and Surpass Your High Performance Goals - Kathleen Schienle [27]
Rather than carrot-and-stick incentive programs, compensation should be part of corporate and team goals and strategy. Ideally, the organization is a community where employees participate in development and decisions and are fairly compensated in the first place.
If you disagree on facts or on your evaluation of their performance, don’t argue; try to diffuse it by suggesting you discuss the matter in your next meeting. Then, plan to gather more data for the next meeting and be prepared to state your case and stand your ground—but stay open to your employee’s arguments and perspective. Be ready and willing to change your evaluation, if appropriate.
If an employee feels slighted or misrepresented, reschedule the meeting. Listen politely and intently. Stay friendly and collegial, and make a point of staying in contact and listening over the next few days. If an employee is in denial about a performance issue, try to find out why the employee can’t see the problem the same way you can.
Employees who demand more money may not feel properly recognized for their work and may threaten to quit. Find out why they’re unhappy. If their complaints relate to a specific problem, tell them you’re already working on it, or will look into it immediately. If they bring up another job offer, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each position, emphasizing how much you want to keep them on your team.
Remember to keep your cool no matter how emotional an employee becomes.
“The founder of a business gets to a point where his or her personal growth is much more involved with allowing others in the company to grow, so that they can give meaning to their own lives.”
—Paul Hawken,
CEO of Smith & Hawken
and author of The Ecology of Commerce
Success and Failure in Meeting Goals
Rarely do employees completely “fail” to achieve their goals. More commonly, they accomplish some of the objectives they set out to meet. A programmer, for example, may complete four of the five actions needed to reach the goal of developing and launching a corporate intranet. Or a salesperson may increase monthly client calls and resulting sales by 17 percent and 6 percent, respectively, when the goal was 18 percent and 8 percent.
Did these employees fail? Not exactly. The point of goal-setting is to define a target and the path to it, to grow and improve on the way to reaching it, and, ultimately, to contribute to the organization’s forward movement. If goal-setting is viewed as a continuous process, then these employees did not fail. Goals are a road map to an employee’s success. If employees takes a “wrong” turn or check out side roads on their journey, it doesn’t mean they will never reach their destination. In fact, it could indicate that they are open to fresh ideas and innovations. Who knows what solutions they’ll encounter along the way?
That’s not to suggest employees can take any detour they want on their way to accomplishing their goals. Nor does it mean that they have built-in excuses for coming up short during evaluation time. But the goal and review process should be flexible and accommodating, especially given the rapid rate of change now standard in the workplace. Be ready to help your employees handle shortcomings and disappointments, along with acknowledging their achievements and setting new goals.
REWARDING GOAL ACHIEVEMENT
When a review confirms that a team member has accomplished his or her goals, then congratulations are in order—for your employee and for you. Goal-setting and performance management help you identify, develop, and keep these high performers.
POWER POINTS
REASONS TO REWARD
Many organizational experts believe rewards are essential.
Rewards for individual and team performance, improvement, and growth are based