How to manage goals and results and actually achieve them?

How do you manage goals and results? Imagine that, after hours of planning and analysis with the company’s employees and managers, the organization’s overall objectives are set, supporting the core values and the business strategy.

Your team is confident about the work done so far, but may not realize what needs to be done to reach the business’s overall objective.

That is when goal and results management needs special attention from the manager!

It is not enough for a company’s leadership to define business goals, objectives and expected results. All professionals, especially leaders, need to take an active part in the daily effort. Otherwise, it will be impossible to turn your vision into reality.

In this article, we show how to work with the goals you have set so they deliver the expected result.

Enjoy the read!

What is goal management?

Goal management is the process of creating, developing, implementing and tracking the fulfillment of predefined targets for departments, employees or the company as a whole. Its purpose is to make sure challenges are overcome and results are achieved satisfactorily.

It is worth remembering that goals are specific results that a company, team or employee must achieve within a set period of time.

These results can be qualitative or quantitative, as long as they are easy to monitor and measure. To create good goals, a good tip is to use the SMART methodologyopens in a new tab (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) as a guide.

Learn more: what goals are and how they differ from objectivesopens in a new tab

What does it mean to be goal-driven?

A company or team that is goal-driven bases its daily decisions on predefined strategic guidelines. In practice, this means that task prioritization, focus and effort are driven by the result they want to achieve.

The key thought of a goal-driven person is “how can I get closer to the expected result more effectively?”, or “how can this activity help me reach my objective faster?”

With a routine based on goal management, teams can work in a more organized way (it is easier to set priorities and urgencies when you keep in mind what must be delivered and by when), more collaboratively (each employee understands their role and can see more clearly how to help the others toward the overall result) and more transparently (the whole company knows that the areas are working toward a common strategic goal).

And the benefits of goal and results management do not stop there. Below are a few more advantages of adopting the methodology in companies.

Benefits of good goal and results management

Some of the benefits of good goal and results management are:

1. it helps build a macro view of the business;
2. it improves individual and team performance;
3. it makes it easier to prioritize tasks;
4. it strengthens the purpose of the business;
5. it helps measure performance.

Let’s look at each of them in detail.

1. It helps build a macro view of the business

By setting short-, medium- and long-term goals, all employees can understand the business’s positioning in a systemic way.

That understanding, in turn, helps each person see their role in strengthening the business’s image and performance in the market.

2. It improves individual and team performance

Knowing exactly what must be delivered and by when helps with individual organization and with the collective coordination of tasks. The impact, of course, shows in the quality of deliveries and in a higher rate of meeting deadlines.

3. It makes it easier to prioritize tasks

When employees know the company’s strategic expectations, they can clearly understand what must be done first and urgently, and which activities demand more effort and focus given their relevance to the business’s overall objectives.

4. It strengthens the purpose of the business

Having clear goals helps people understand the company’s macro objective, that is, its purpose and reason for existing. A deep understanding of the essence of the business connects them to the work and strengthens the sense of belonging, which directly affects team productivity and engagement.

5. It helps measure performance

Good goal management requires defining indicators and tracking metrics (we will cover this in detail below).

From there, it is possible to set comparison parameters for the performance of departments, people and leaders, considering the deliveries made and the preestablished standards.

7 tips for managing goals and results

Goal and results management can end up becoming a theoretical exercise with no practical use.

To keep that from happening, one tip is to make goals and expected results tangible. A good way to start is by looking at the company’s previous cases.

You can also do some benchmarking and look for examples of expected results that other businesses have achieved.

However, focusing your efforts on the items above is not enough.

That is why we selected 7 tips that can make all the difference when managing goals and results in your business.

1. Define the direction: build the foundations of your strategic planning

BSC (Balanced Scorecard)opens in a new tab, GPD (Policy Deployment), MBO (Management by Objectives), OKR (Objectives and Key Results) and SEF (Strategic Execution Framework) are only some of the methodologies that support building and executing a Strategic Plan, the fundamental basis for effective goal management.

Depending on the professionals involved, hybrid models created by mixing these and other approaches are also common.

Regardless of the methodology used to build the strategic plan, there is a consensus that a good plan that is well executed is much better than an exceptional plan that never left the paper.

So, when structuring the company’s strategic plan and designing its goal management, consider the aspects below and make sure the direction is tangible, realistic and executable.

• Business identity: this is where you define what the company “is” or “wants to be” and, above all, what it “is not” or “does not want to be”. Making choices is hard, but keep in mind that the more focus, the greater the chances of success;
• Value proposition: it must make clear what your products and services are, who they are for and why they are better than the existing alternatives;
• Critical Success Factors: a list of characteristics considered vital to the market, which can also help differentiate you from competitors and create a unique value proposition;
• SWOT matrix: this tool lets you analyze strengths vs. weaknesses (internal scenario) and opportunities vs. threats (external scenario);
• Objectives: they are the result of the strategic plan. These objectives will guide how the business is run, helping to highlight the Critical Success Factors, the Strengths and the Opportunities, mitigating the Weaknesses and protecting the company from the Threats;
• Performance Indicators: executing the strategy is a long journey, and you cannot wait until the end of the period to see the result of each objective that came out of planning. Performance indicators are responsible for warning about problems in how the plan is being carried out, in time to correct course.

2. Communicate beyond words

Executing a business strategy efficiently requires the commitment of all employees. Managers who can spread the strategy across every department, so that it stays relevant to each one, help everyone focus on the core business.

If your business reaches that level of commitment, the chances of success will be higher.

Articulate business goals clearly, in a way that motivates, inspires and encourages employeesopens in a new tab (in Portuguese) to commit to getting the most out of their individual potential.

To do that, you must use multiple channels to communicate goals, strategies and values: printed copies, the company intranet, speeches, interviews and press releases are some of them.

Business leaders do not communicate only with words; their actions speak louder. Whatever your industry, you can start a strategy that shows your vision.

The CEO and the management team can, for example, visit each department and hold regular meetings to share values, ask for ideas and celebrate successes.

Professionals in senior roles can set aside a day to take on different roles in the organization and, in this way, better understand the challenges their employees face every day.

In short, any action that helps strengthen the connections between managers and employees at all levels should be encouraged.

This deepens feelings of companionship and approachability, which reinforce team motivation and, consequently, the company’s ability to turn its goals into objectives and results.

3. Embrace change

Business strategies and goals have life cycles. With organizational changes, success can quickly turn into failure.

The need to change arises from different factors, such as tougher competition, new market requirements or significant changes in the business environment.

Not even the most capable managers can predict every change caused by external factors. However, what determines a business’s success is its ability to adapt quickly.

So you should analyze your company’s processes from a cross-functional perspective centered on customer satisfaction, because that way you will be more confident making structural changes whenever necessary.

4. Involve the team in carrying out the project

“Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration,” Thomas Edison

A strategy that has been properly communicated in the company requires everyone’s involvement to be executed.

That involvement, in turn, is only achieved if people feel part of the process and identify with the plan and the path to follow. In short: a good strategy is only executed if all employees are engaged.

Anyone who believes team engagement comes only from financial recognition is mistaken. Good salaries may secure initial effort, but only one thing can engage people over the long term: the company’s environment and culture.

5. Plan how to turn goals into expected results

Implementing the strategies needed for goals to become results requires a detailed, hierarchical action plan. For your company to succeed at this task, consider the following practices:

Determine what will be a priority

After defining the goals, point out which ones are priorities.

Trying to do everything at once, besides being impractical, fills processes with rush and unfounded haste, which will only set your business up for failure.

Create detailed action plans with specific responsibilities

Translate your strategy into operational terms through action plansopens in a new tab, programs, budgets and specific procedures.

Implementation must involve identifying and allocating capital and human resources for the execution of objective actions. All employees will be more productive if each one understands their objectives, responsibilities and deadlines.

Identify risks to develop contingency plans

Every action has at least one associated risk. As soon as you identify it, develop a contingency plan and do not be afraid to use it.

In any case, if you still feel unsure about which measures to include in the plan, ask for opinions and information from the employees directly affected.

Measure, monitor and control

This is the most relevant tip of all. Establishing appropriate metrics is extremely important. Only then will you be able to measure the performance of objectives and results and then act accordingly.

In addition, without adequate metricsopens in a new tab (in Portuguese), your company cannot regularly assess risks and put contingency plans into practice when needed.

BONUS: Less is more!

It is hard to contain the enthusiasm of those who take part in meetings about building a company’s goal management. Everyone feels that, despite the challenges, nobody will be able to hold “this company” back.

That enthusiasm, which has its positive side, can lead to overestimating the execution capacity of the company and its employees, which ends up bloating the final result of the planning. It is not rare to see small and medium-sized companies with a pile-up of goals to be met.

Here the maxim “Less is More” applies: fewer Goals, Objectives, Initiatives and Indicators make execution and tracking easier, so the final result is better and those involved get the sense of “duty done”.

To avoid the trap of excess, also use the planning meetings to prioritize with the group the goals that are truly essential, leaving everything else for next year or even for “if there is time left”.

The businessman Jorge Paulo Lemann says that “today my companies always have 5 basic goals.” In other words, by tracking 5 key indicators he can understand what is happening in each of his companies and where they are heading.

6. Develop an operating model

The operating model is a tool used to define how the organization will carry out its planning in its operating environments.

It covers all the work, skills, tools, technologies, structures and processes needed to run the business.

What an operating model allows you to do:

• develop the required skills;
• build commitment to new ways of managing;
• manage changes that are vital to the whole company or to specific departments;
• create a well-defined, structured business to reach its objectives, aligning human capital with the organization’s needs;
• speed up teams’ adaptation to technological innovations;
• put the focus on customer satisfaction.

Let’s look at an example

A certain company decided to adopt a strategy to expand the business through acquisitions.

The IT department recognized the need for a solid process execution plan and developed an operating model that identified the skills needed to support the work.

The central element of that model was showing what the organizational structure should be to support business expansion.

From then on, it was easier to hire and train employees according to the company’s new needs.

Another central component, in that company, for reaching the goals and results was the adoption of tools and technologies that allowed the creation of a series of efficient processes for integrating the newly acquired companies.

Poor integration of the acquired organizations could have been fatal to reaching the objectives and, in extreme cases, put the company’s very existence at risk.

A simple and objective way to define a business model is the Canvas Model. Do you know it? Then check it out:

7. Manage like a high-performance leader

Building a strategy that prioritizes what is truly essential for the organization, communicating it and engaging people around it, and tracking its execution and results are only the first steps of a long journey.

To help along the way, leaders need to act as mentors, helping their people reach the required performance and consistently meet the deadlines they committed to. But how? The answer is simple: by managing.

Here are three simple tips that can make you a better manager and leader, helping you and your team reach results:

• Try to meet regularly and one-on-one with each person on your team;

  In these meetings, value and recognize good results and achievements. If you have already done this, you know how hard it is!

• Late projects and tasks should be discussed in these same meetings. If that is not done, you will be implicitly communicating that accountability is not a required item in your organization;

• Use the meetings to assess and start addressing the results that fell short of the established goals. If your team can easily see the goals that are in the “red” on a management dashboard, but you as a manager say nothing, red starts to be seen as normal, and that cannot be normal in a company that wants to improve its results.

How to track goal and results management?

Goal management works when each goal has an owner, a deadline and an indicator, and the result shows up without depending on a spreadsheet. Without that, goals stay in the plan and tracking gets lost in the routine.

In Stratwsopens in a new tab, the AI platform for strategic and performance management created by Siteware, company goals are broken down to each employee, each indicator has a defined formula, owner and frequency, and deviations become action plans with an owner and a deadline, on a dashboard that managers use in follow-up meetings.

Want more tips on how to manage goals and results? Download our free e-book: How to break down goals with individual performance indicatorsopens in a new tab (in Portuguese)