The topic for this month’s newsletter and articles is about leading your team through the election and keeping them focused through the end of the year. As it happens, this can be a tough time of year to keep your staff focused anyway, what with the holidays. But add in the fact that it’s a presidential election year—and even more so a hotly emotional election year on both sides—and you have your work cut out for you.
A good part of keeping your team focused is the setting of goals and keeping your team focused on them.
Short and Long Term
The whole idea of goals is to have an idea of where you’re headed. For a group, having goals brings about agreement on where everyone is going and helps keep attention off potential distractions.
Many companies set short-term goals, but often they aren’t short enough. For example, sales goals are often for the month. Then, being human, salespeople tend to do a bit of slacking off until the end of the month is nearing, then they suddenly roar into high gear.
A better approach, which an increasing number of successful companies are adopting, is to set weekly targets. Staff will still tend to wait until the end of the week is close, then jump on it—but it’s better than cramming a month’s worth of sales into the final week before the month ends. As the weeks are finished, the weekly attainments can be tallied so that everyone knows what must still be done to ensure the month’s target is met or exceeded.
What of longer-term goals? A company should certainly have a solid idea of where it’s headed for a year, and most do. In a similar way to weekly targets, as the months roll by, they can be evaluated against the yearly goal so the business always knows what must be done in succeeding months to ensure it attains that annual target.
To really provide insight and agreement, go longer than a year—target 2 to 3 years out. Make sure these longer-term goals are broadly known and agreed upon throughout the company.
Removing Distractions
One thing I always emphasize in my own seminars concerning goals and targets is the vital necessity to keep company personnel focused. Is weekly focus enough? I point out in seminars that the media is ruthlessly attempting to create chaos on a daily basis. If your company leadership is only communicating its goals once per week, that means the staff is getting bombarded by the media the other four days. Who will win that battle for their attention? Distraction can become a major issue, especially in an emotional election year. It is, therefore, worthwhile to make some mention of weekly, monthly and even yearly targets on a daily basis.
Bear it in mind consistently as this year closes out and we head into the next one: goal setting keeps your team focused. Splurge on it!
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