Date: 1/28/2016

Title: GOALS AND ACCOUNTABILITY – Part 4

By Bryan Arzani

So, let’s say you’ve followed all these steps well. You’ve set goals with input from your team. Together, you’ve established key results areas, discussed how to measure them, and set goals that follow the SMART method. Your vision has been communicated to the team, and they are pumped!! You are very pleased and go back to your office, mentally brushing your hands. It’s like you can be done with this and can focus on other things. Of course the team will achieve the outcome. They worked on setting it. Everyone is on board with goal and process. Life is good!!

Well no, not really. Just because you’ve done all of this, doesn’t mean you can stop monitoring progress. You have to stay with the team. You have to ensure they have the tools necessary to complete each step. Sometimes, ‘stuff happens’ and a key piece of information or material isn’t available when you planned on it being there. You have to lead when a member of the team (usually the one with the key skills) gets sick and is absent from work for a few days. You have to motivate and lead when members of the team don’t meet their “phase two” goals, because they were “too busy”.

There are three reasons people don’t get things done:

• They aren’t capable
• They don’t know how
• They choose not to

It is a matter of prioritization. Do people get busy? Of course, they do! But, if the team REALLY needed phase two done by a certain date, then your expectation is that team members will prioritize their time to meet this deadline. This expectation must be communicated to them, with consequences for not meeting it. Then, your discussion is NOT about the fact that they were busy (which is a conversation that never ends), it is about the fact that they made a choice that hindered the team.

To learn more about how to practice this understanding, contact Results Group, LLC at www.ResultsGroupLLC.com or 515-330-2866.