Management tips:

Team building through goal setting

Dr. K. Kuhathasan, CEO, Cenlead

Once a team has been formed the next major step is to establish goals. Goals may well change over the course of a team's existence for example, if a new product is being launched to the market, the first priority will be for the team to concentrate on research into its competition.

If the aim is to improve customers satisfaction, the first goal will be to find ways of providing a higher standard of service. According to the circumstance, team working goals may include.

Increasing the rate of productivity in a manufacturing company

Improving the quality of production

Involving all employees in the decision-making process to increase job satisfaction

Looking at working systems and practices to reduce time wastage

Working together with customers to build closer relationships so that the needs of the market can be better understood

Set clear, meaningful goals. Your team can't hit its targets blindfolded. Goals must be well-defined and sharply focused. Quantify them wherever possible-in percentages, or other values that can be verified and measured objectively.

But don't stop there. Make sure your team's goals are meaningful enough to motivate teammates to sacrifice some individual recognition for the sake of the group. "What's in it for us? Is more important than "What's in it for me?"

One sound technique for setting meaningful goals is to involve your team informulating them from the start. This commonsense practice makes the goals theirs, not someone else's. Teammates have a vested interested in what they've agreed to do and feel a personal stake in the outcome.

Communicate and dramatise these goals. Members will appreciate the impact of their skills and effort.

For example, these goals may be:

Reduce down time for routine maintenance by 15 per cent. This would enable us to make and sell 27,300 more units than last year and increase net income by Rs. 200,000,000.

Cross-train each team member to perform at least one additional task within the department. This would qualify the team for a Rs. 20,000 bonus under the company's skill-development programme.

Setting objectives based on goals

What is an objective?

An objective is another way of saying aim, or final result. Objectives are also often called strategy or aims, although sometimes the last two are rather broader. Goals are where you want to get to objectives are usually the more detailed ways of achieving them.

What are you trying to achieve?

Objective setting is a process rather than a system. Organisations adopting formal objective setting, usually apply certain rules for creating, documenting and then monitoring them.

Objectives are large statements of intent. For example to:

1. Double our turnover in two years

2. Reduce complaints to three per five hundred customers.

3. Increase our profit margin by 20 per cent within 18 months

4. Obtain a 30 per cent market share by next June

5. Shut production line with minium disruption to other lines

6. Improve the retention of staff by 15 per cent within one year.

7. Open a branch office in galle within five years.

Objectives are usually then broken into smaller chunks. These chunks are targets and are the nuts and bolts of the whole process. While practically anyone can set a broad aim part of the skill is converting it into a whole series of practical steps that forms together to achieve the overall result.

An objective such as 'improve our profit margin' may need converting into several smaller targets:

Target 1 - Increase our sale price to the customer by 10 per cent

Target 2 - Identify all overheads and their proportion of the total

Target 3 - Reduce selected overheads by 30 per cent within one year

A formal objective setting system:

1. Helps achieve specific results that are defined in advance

2. Provides a way of co-ordinating action

3. Focuses on the kernel of a leader's job-to get results

4. Improves communication between the team

5. Acts as a tool for clarifying results

6. Explains what is expected form the team

7. Provides a control and monitoring mechanism

It is pointless having objectives without knowing whether or not they are being achieved. An essential element of any formal objective setting process is regular feedback on:

1. How quickly one is progressing towards the aim?

2. How close the end result is?

3. What further action necessary?

Set high performance standards. Part of your responsibility as a team leader is to pursue successively higher achievement over time inspire your team by asking:

1. How/where can we improve?

2. Why do we have to do it that way?

3. Who is having a better idea?

4. How is this being done in other bench mark organisations, in other departments by other teams.

5. Why are we not working upto the full potential?

6. Why can't we do better than this?

7. What is holding us back?

8. Why are we not the best?

9. Are we honestly challenging ourselves?

10. Have we looked at this from every possible angle?

Expect people to resist a move to team work because of tradition, fear of losing control, fewer promotional opportunities, and lack of individual recognition.

Live up to your teammates personal and professional expectations

Your success will also hinge on your ability to:

Set clear, meaningful team goals

Build mutual trust

Obtain higher management's support

Secure good training

Surrender control to your team

Challenge your team with high standards

Pursue diversity in assembling team members

Team work in action

1. Has the team enjoyed previous success in a similar task?

2. Is the team an established work group?

3. Has the team enjoyed autonomy in task management and decision making before?

4. Does the team fully understand and share the goals?

5. Are the team values implied in the task?

6. Is the team ready for further development in autonomy and decision-making?