Goal setting and effective team development

Dr. K. Kuhathasan CEO: CENLEAD

Once a team has been formed, the next major step is to establish goals. Goals may well change 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 on competition. If the aim is to improve customer satisfaction, the first goal will be to find ways and means 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 waste.

* 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 cannot hit its targets blindfolded. Goals must be well-defined and sharply focused. Quantify them wherever possible-in rupees, percentages or other values that can be verified and measured objectively.

But don't stop there. Ensure your team's goals are meaningful enough to motivate team-makes to sacrifice some individual recognition for the sake of the group.

"What's in it for us?" should seem at least as important and appealing as "What's in it for me?"

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

Communicate and dramatize these goals so that team members will appreciate the impact of their skills and effort.

For example, these goals may be:

* Reduce downtime for routine maintenance by 15 percent. This would enable us to make and sell 27,300 more units than last year and increase the 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 program.

Setting objectives based on goals

What is an objective?

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.

Organizations adopting formal objective setting, usually apply certain rules for creating, documenting and then monitoring them.

Objectives are large statements of intent.

For example to:

* Double our turnover in two years.

* Reduce complaints to three per five hundred customers.

* Increase profit margin by 20 percent within 18 months.

* Obtain a 30 percent market share by next June.

* Shut production line with minimum disruption to other lines.

* Improve the retention of staff by 15 percent within one year.

* 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 percent.

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

Target 3 - Reduce selected overheads by 30 percent within one year.

A formal objective setting system

* Helps achieve specific results that are defined in advance.

* Provides a way of co-ordinating action.

* Focuses on the core of a Leader's job-to get results.

* Improves communication between the team.

* Acts as a tool for clarifying results.

* Explains what is expected from the team.

* 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 a regular feedback on:

* How quickly one is progressing towards the aim?

* How close the end result is?

* What further action is necessary?

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

* How/where can we improve?

* Why do we have to do it that way?

* Who has a better idea?

* How is this being done in other benchmark organizations, in other departments, by other teams.

* Why are we not working up to the full potential?

* Why can't we do better than this?

* What is holding us back?

* Why are we not the best?

* Are we honestly challenging ourselves.

* 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 team-mates 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.

Tips for discussion

* Has the team enjoyed previous success in a similar task?

* Is the team an established work group?

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

* Does the team fully understand and share the goals?

* Are the team values implied in the task?

* Is the team ready for further development in autonomy and decision making?

* Has the team demonstrated commitment and the ability to meet deadlines?

The first two or three meetings of a newly formed team are critical for setting the tone. There is serious work at hand, but everyone can have fund and contribute to the team by working together. This requires a balance between learning about the task and learning about each other.

Team Development

Maximizing Performance

It is vital that all members of a team work together to maximize team performance. Give people full responsibility for their jobs and empower them to execute and improve their own work in ways that optimize their contribution to the entire team.

Awarding responsibility

The first duty of any person working in a team is to attend to their own job. To make a team work together successfully, however, responsibility must go beyond the individual. Award your team total responsibility for achieving its own goals.

Create a sense of responsibility in each individual so that they are happy to fulfil their allotted tasks to the best of their ability.

Perform this task by delegating tasks efficiently and monitoring each team members performance, as well as that of the team as a whole. In this way you will promote the sharing of responsibility among team members, and encourage individuals to assist their colleagues and enhance the overall performance of the team.

Sharing responsibility

Drawing up common aims and agreeing to individual roles when a team is established is only the beginning of a process. A team must be responsible for implementing its policies, monitoring progress and responding creatively and constructively where action falls short of objectives. It is also the responsibility of the team as a whole to ensure that there is a free flow of communication among members - everybody to be kept fully informed about progress and changes in policy.

Ensuring peak performance

As a team leader, your role is to facilitate your team's efficiency. You can do this by taking responsibility for a number of different functions:

* Ensuring that all the members of your team are aware of their responsibilities and are challenged by their work.

* Encouraging team members to contribute their best to the team and the task in hand.

* Overseeing the team's work practices to ensure that individual members work towards a common end.

* Assessing and setting team goals at the correct level to inspire continued motivation.

* Making sure that any overlap between team and individual responsibilities does not result in duplicated tasks.

* Each team member should be able to cover the role of at least one other member.

* People should be given the responsibility to act on their own initiative within a team.

* A large task will be better handled if the entire project is handed over to a team.

* People need to be aware of where their own responsibilities begin and end.

* Each team member needs to be encouraged to find their own best method of working.

Being flexible

Any team demands much from its members. While each member of the team has his or her own role and responsibility, they should be flexible and willing to adapt to change.

Some manufacturing groups require members to fulfil every aspect of their team's work.

Show flexibility by sharing aspects of your leadership role, and help team members by providing an assistant to share or take over some of their duties.

As the team develops and progresses, look at individual roles, and modify them and when the task requires it.

Improving team efficiency

Analysing team dynamics

Good team leaders make the most of the human assets at their disposal. To do this, you need to understand each group member, how their behaviour changes within the team, and how individual responses vary at different stages in the team's development.

Encouraging team-work

People operate well in groups, a characteristic that can be seen in sporting teams where they instinctively co-operate, voluntarily take on responsibility, and endorse decisions for the overall good of the team.

To achieve the same cohesive behaviour in a work environment, team members need to overcome any inclination to be defensive with each other.

Encourage your team to spend as much time together as possible people are naturally gregarious creatures and will overcome any initial reticence as they grow to recognize each other's particular skills and strengths.