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Personal resolutions don’t fulfill themselves — investing in a gym membership isn’t the same as showing up and getting on the elliptical. The same is true for businesses. Simply setting vague goals in a post-holiday meeting and throwing money at them won’t make them realize themselves.
Here are five ways talent managers can ensure their goals don’t suffer the same fate as some folks’ plans to swim the English Channel.
Make the “how” the goal. According to Paul David Walker, a business adviser, Genius Stone Partners founder and author of Unleashing Genius: Leading Yourself, Teams, and Corporations, a company’s resolutions are something to be worked toward with every action.
“People can’t relate to a number; there’s no ‘how’ in a number,” he said. The activities that lead to that number or goal are the goals themselves, Walker said. “You have to have a visceral description of how that will happen, and it needs to be in the present tense. Because if you say, ‘I will’ or ‘we will,’ you push it into the future.” Brainstorming the steps needed to reach a goal, then making those steps into a clear plan will make initiatives easier for clients or employees to follow and get excited about.
Culture of communication. This is most effective when the entire workforce is on board — something that can’t be achieved unless management is actually listening. This isn’t something that can be faked, but requires a collective shift in the culture of a company toward one where every member of the team feels valued and heard, Walker said.
“It’s really critical that you establish a relationship with your employees, that you’re open to hearing all their ideas and thoughts,” he said. “You have to create the environment that encourages people to speak up.”
The key is cutting egos from the conversation and resisting the urge to shoot down an idea immediately. “A big part of that is when someone does share, even if it is totally stupid — which sometimes it is — never make the employee wrong.”
Continue reading at Talent Management magazine!
