Part 4 - Why your goals are important
This post is based on a course lesson from How to incrementally improve your Team.
There need to be concrete reasons, goals in mind for wanting to improve yourself and your team. You also need to be able to measure and see evidence that these goals are being achieved. This is important for the whole team, achieving goals is not just rewarding but as we know is also highly satisfying.
Consider
Why are you wanting to improve your team?
Have you thought about your own professional development?
What problems are you trying to solve?
What outcomes are you after?
Here are some example answers to these questions
Lack of preparation to successfully lead.
Lack of promotion.
Need a better work/life balance.
An enjoyable lifestyle as a result of higher remuneration.
An increasing lack of confidence.
Developing managerial effectiveness.
Better team member engagement.
Determining your management approach.
Micro-managing.
The pressure to succeed immediately.
Communicating objectives to your team.
Establish the team’s purpose.
Manage team talent.
Leverage team norms to drive performance.
Master team conflict.
Managing difficult People.
Pressure.
Letting someone go.
Delivering bad news.
Staying motivated.
Culture issues.
Being respected and being liked.
Empowering team members.
Engaging introverts.
Fostering collaboration.
Work performance and productivity.
Fostering an environment of trust through recognition and feedback.
Exercise
Think about and list your Professional reasons, your goals, for wanting to improve yourself and your team. You can select from the list above, and/or create your own. Here are some more examples.
To upskill my management competency and capability.
To address particular management or departmental issues.
To prepare for a major strategic business initiative.
To manage increasing workloads.
To improve morale and job satisfaction.
To do more with fewer resources or have a faster start-up/reaction time to new, unplanned business needs.
Now think about and list your Personal reasons, the outcomes you want from improving yourself and your team, for example.
To have a better career.
To increase job satisfaction level.
To become a professional.
To better manage a team.
To build a High-Performance team.
Working with people who are loyal, supportive and trustworthy.
Professional development, new skills, knowledge and behaviours, and over time become increasingly better at whatever is being done.
The ability to overachieve in comparison to others.
Attainment of something that very few people get the opportunity to obtain.
Now, looking at the two lists you have prepared, against each item, write down the Measures you will use as evidence that the goal has been achieved, for example.
Lack of preparation to successfully lead. (Feeling more confident about managing).
Lack of promotion. (Received a promotion, managing more staff.)
Need a better work/life balance. (More personal time, now going to the gym.)
An enjoyable lifestyle as a result of higher remuneration. (Increased remuneration)
Developing managerial effectiveness. (Team is working better, getting more done, less stress.)
Team member engagement. (Good team member relations, feeling more relaxed.)
Micro-managing. (Team members are self-managing.)
Communicating objectives to your team. (Team has a common goal.)
Leverage team norms to drive performance. (Team has direction.)
Master team conflict. (Conflict management practice is in place.)
