Steps to realign an organization around key goals and objectives and avoid the deleterious effects of a recession

I have been preaching since the beginning of the year that you need to have a well documented strategy with well thought-out supporting goals and objectives to ensure your employees are doing the right things to move your organization forward. I even wrote a blog articulating the difference between a goal and an objective. I was surprised by the number of emails I received from readers stating that they never really understood the difference between the two.

Having well documented goals and objectives are especially important now, especially if you think we're heading into a recession. Well documented goals and objectives ensure your employees are not being distracted by insignificant, trivial activities and tasks. More importantly, the documented goals and objectives ensures that your employees know exactly what you're trying to accomplish, how it be accomplished, and how success will be measured.

Many organizations make the common mistake of stating their "goals and objectives" as ambiguous written themes. Such as, "be vendor of choice", "improve employee engagement", "provide unparalleled service", and blah, blah, blah. To make matters worst, the organization then allows mangers to define how they will comply with the goal and communicate it their subordinates. Its also not uncommon for managers to rewrite the company's goals in their own terms that may or may not have the same meaning of the originally poorly written organizational goals. Consequently, as goals are cascaded through the organization the meaning and intent is lost in the various translations and rewrites.

Unfortunately and too frequently, I have seen managers write goals that directly opposed goals of another department or team. Talk about zero sum gain.

Here is what I what you to do in order to be successful even during recessionary times.

* Revisit your current goals and objectives, if they exist. Ensure they are clear and measurable. You can’t drive change using written unmeasuraable themes, however, you can drive towards a clear, well-defined measure. If each objective doesn’t have a measure, establish one, now, and its baseline.

* Make a list of all current initiatives that are underway and or planned within the organization. All initiatives, you will be surprised or more accurately disappointed by what your people are working on or think is important.

* Map every initiative to the organization’s goals and objectives. This will be difficult and frustrating because you will immediately get a sense and magnitude of how much effort and time has been squandered by your employees.

* Review each initiative to determine if it’s strategic or urgent. If the initiative is neither strategic nor urgent, consider canceling the initiative. Don't make the mistake of allowing trivial projects to continue simply because they approaching completion. Kill them now! Develop new initiatives that may have been overlooked and or urgent.

* Prioritize the new list of initiatives and determine how to resource and fund the initiative.

* Re -communicate goals, objectives, measures, and key strategic initiatives.


Good luck!
In the future, I will be blogging about other techniques to recession proof your organization.

Do you know the difference between a goal and an objective?

As a consultant, I have the fortunate opportunity, or misfortune depending on your perspective, to review many organizations’ goals, objectives, and supporting initiatives. Despite the size of the organization, it’s obvious that most organizations large and small, public or private don’t understand the difference between a goal and an objective.

For some reason, unknown to me, this drives me crazy. I expect most business people, especially senior level executives to use the terms goal and objective correctly. Perhaps it’s my deeply held belief that in order for organizations to achieve success they have to be able to effectively communicate their goals and objectives and that these goals and objectives will be cascaded down through the organization. Silly me.

A goal is a brief, clear statement of an outcome to be reached within a timeframe such as 3-5 years. A goal is a broad, general, tangible, and descriptive statement. It does not say how to do something, but rather what the results will look like. It is measurable both in terms of quality and quantity. It is time based. It is achievable. It is a stretch from where we are now. Above all, it is singular.

Goals can be described or defined as “Outcome statements that define what an organization is trying to accomplish both programmatically and organizationally.”

As an illustration, some common business goals are, grow profitability, maximize net income, improve customer loyalty and etc. Notice the brevity of these statements.

In comparison, an objective is a specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound condition that must be attained in order to accomplish a particular goal. Objectives define the actions must be taken within a year to reach the strategic goals. For example, if an organization has a goal to “grow revenues”. An objective to achieve the goal may be “introduce 2 new products by 20XX Q3.” Other examples of common objectives are, increase revenue by x% in 20XX, reduce overhead costs by X% by 20XX, and etc. In contrast to a goal, notice how the objectives are more specific and provide more detail.

A goal is where you want to be and objectives are the steps taken to reach the goal.

As I write this blog, 2008 Q1 has come to end and I bet many of you don't have any idea of your organization's goals and objectives. If don't know them, how do you know if you have been working on the right projects/things?

Creating a Balanced Scorecard Recent Program Comments

You missed a great presentation on the Balanced Scorecard that I recently gave to over 30 people at a recent Vermont ASQ event.

Here are some of the comments;
"It’s always a pleasure to hear you speak. I continue to learn volumes from you, and enjoy your special flavor of humor" - Mike

"It was great to see you yesterday and hear your enthusiasm again! I had forgotten how charged up you get about quality and just plain good business practice! ;-)" -



Click here for the presentation

If you're interested in great Strategy Mapping and Balanced Scorecard software click here. If you have problems with the software or need assistance setting it up contact me.

Danz Next Event - Building a Balanced Scorecard: "Identifying Key Performance Variables"

Date 1/17/08
Building a Balanced Scorecard: "Identifying Key Performance Variables"
Balanced Scorecard methodologies have emerged as a proven and effective tool to capture, describe, and translate organizations' strategic goals, into meaningful objectives at corporate, divisional, and individual employee levels, thereby allowing for the strategies to be successfully implemented. During this exciting event, you will learn how to create a draft scorecard for your function or process, and learn more as we discuss:
* Basic concepts of balanced scorecards and how it can be used to improve organization performance
* Key concepts behind an effective Strategy Map
* How the Balanced Scorecard methodology can be used to drive Operational Excellence and Organizational Alignment

For more information contact slick1122@comcast.net

When: Thursday, January 17^th 2008

Time: 5:30pm Registration

Place: Windjammer in South Burlington

Cost: $20 ASQ and TPC Members); $30 for non-members Buffet Dinner will be provided!