How to get objectives achieved

People often ask me how you go about getting the objectives achieved, once you have agreed them. It’s all very well spending all that time writing SMART objectives and goals, but there’s no point if you don’t follow through.

One very simple way is to have regular review meetings. They don’t have to be onerous. In fact, it’s much better if they are not.

All you need to do is get together, with either your whole team or just an individual. Then you check the progress against each objective.

You simply ask:

• What has happened so far
• Where you are against the plan
• What help is required to make sure you meet the deadline.

Now, if you have never done this before, the first few meetings will take quite a while. However, as you gain experience, the meetings will become shorter and shorter.

How often should you have the meetings?

The answer is always “more often than you think”.
Once or twice a week is usually a good starting point. The key is to ensure success, rather than catch problems and then have to deal with them.


Steve Jobs did this at Apple twice a week. It didn’t do Apple any harm.

Dos and Don’ts for meetings

• Do fix a regular time every day/week
• Don’t cancel the meeting if someone is off
• Do stick to the point
• Don’t get dragged into the detail and start working on the issues in the meeting
• Do arrange a separate time to work on problems that are identified
• Don’t blame people
• Do reward people for bringing up issues and talking about them openly

The wrong priorities and objectives

At the weekend I met up with a friend who is a completely dedicated doctor. She told me what had happened recently at her hospital. She looked at the new rotas and pointed out to the managers that they might be better for staff in some way, they would result in worse patient care.

“You sound as though you think we should put patient care first.” Responded the manager in tones that indicated that this was not his goal.

My friend was horrified.

Patient care is the priority

If any manager in the NHS is not intent on putting patient care first, I think we really need to ask what he or she is doing in that job. We need to know why they were recruited and who was responsible for such an error.

I would find it hard to justify their continuing employment.

Good patient care does not cost more

As we talked I was glad to see we were in complete agreement. Good patient care does not cost more. Often it costs less.

A young friend who is currently working as a healthcare assistant told us that part of her job is to move food from where one person has put it - just a few inches out of reach of the patient - to where the patient can reach it. She does the same for their drinks.

This is completely wasted effort and it is inexcusable that people are so badly managed that they are apparently completely unaware of the priorities in their work.

The objectives are wrong

In a case like this it is clear that the objectives at the top are wrong as are the priorities. These things need to be got right by those in charge. Otherwise no one stands a chance, patient or employee.

How to make the most of measures in objectives

The importance of being measured – how to measure objectives

What should you measure? And how should you measure it? These are two very important questions when it comes to setting goals, objectives and targets.

You know it’s important that objectives are SMART, (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bounded) but that’s no good if you are measuring the wrong thing or the wrong person is getting the information.

Example of the wrong measure

I was reading a book about measuring objectives recently. Yes, there are such books.

The thing that worried me was that the author was suggesting that all the information should be going to the manager. In only one casual aside did he mention that people might like to get the measures themselves.

He talks about the objective of reducing errors per 100 sales. `He suggests the Sales Processing Manager and the Customer Relationship Manager should be getting this information.

But he does not mention the people responsible for this task.

A typical mistake made by managers

So often managers put themselves and their processes between the person doing the job and the results they get.

If you want someone to improve their performance and level of skill, it’s vital that they get the information they need in order to do that.

Getting a report at the end of the week telling you that there were 5 errors in every hundred orders is almost useless. What you need is to know straight away if the order is correct or not.

Then you can work out what you need to do to get it right every time.
Even worse, putting all the information in the manager’s hands first is one of the biggest mistakes people make. It’s like being back at school and waiting for the results of your exams.

You can trust your people to get it right if they have the right information
If you get the information you need immediately you can work out how to do a good job every time. To keep this information from people is both patronising and stupid. It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Get people to give you the information

Instead of operating in this schoolteacher manner, either make the information as automated as possible and give everyone access to it, or get the individuals to report the information back to you, instead of you giving it to them.

This will make it much easier for people to take responsibility for improving their performance and you will find they are much more motivated.

Micromanaging and box ticking at the Probation Service

The Justice Select Committee has just published a report about the probation service. The service is described as having a ‘tick-box, bean-counting culture’ and they say that probation staff spend just a quarter of their time face to face with offenders, MPs said.

Is filling in forms bad?

The rest of the time is spent filling in forms, sending emails, and complying with official targets and dictats.

Is this a bad thing? From what has been said so far it would seem that there might be some inappropriate and time-consuming measures that probation officers have to comply with. And this means that they don’t spend the time needed with their clients.

The trouble is it is very easy to underestimate the amount of time it takes to do all the admin compared to the ‘real job’.

A chef

Let’s take the example of a chef. In order for the chef to be able to cook wonderful meals here are some of the other tasks that need to be completed:

• Buying the food
• Furnishing the restaurant
• Keeping the place clean
• The washing-up
• Replacing broken and old equipment
• Hiring staff
• Marketing the restaurant
• Serving the customers
• Planning the menus
• Doing the laundry
• Dealing with any staff issues
• Doing the accounts and book-keeping
• Redecorating
• Training the staff
• Designing and keeping up to date the website
• Answering emails

In a well-run restaurant you would like to think that the chef spent most of his or her time cooking the food. But you would also like him or her to have a say in the menu, the food that is bought, the wine, hiring and training staff, dealing with customers, what equipment is needed in the restaurant to cook and prepare the food

How much time do you spend on your job?

Pretty soon, your chef is not spending anything like 100% of his or her time preparing food.
The true measure of the skill of the chef is the taste and quality of the food, but that doesn’t mean he or she spends every minute cooking it.

So it is with the probation officers. Any manager should be making sure that his or her team are able to produce the results required to the level of quality required and needs to be taking away obstacles in their way.

Badly set objectives

Badly set objectives around how much time you spend on particular tasks do not help. It’s very easy to assume that the amount of time spent on a task is what’s important. But that’s not the way to measure it.

It would probably be better to have 10 minutes with an exceptional probation officer than two hours with one who does not know the job.

Alcoholism

Sheila Hancock tells of John Thaw, who for part of his life suffered an addiction to alcohol. Somehow she found an expert who saw him for six sessions over a week. He never drank again.

I would love to know what he did during that time.

I imagine quite a lot of his time was spent honing his skills.

I mention this because a customer of the probation service was interviewed today and explained how his probation officer had helped him recover from his addiction to alcohol.

Probation objectives

In researching this article I tried to find the objectives of the Probation Service. The closest I could get was this – from Ireland.

The Probation Service works with offenders and others to reduce offending and to make communities safer places. We work closely with the Courts Service, the Irish Prisons Service, An Garda Síochána and many organisations in the community to achieve those aims.

The more I looked into it, the more it seemed that much of the job of the probation officer is about preparing reports, making assessments and dealing with the courts. If this is the case, it’s not surprising that they spend apparently so little time with their clients.

The job of a good manager is to ensure their team is able to achieve their objectives and do whatever they can to remove all the unnecessary stuff from them – but the trouble is there’s always someone creating more of that unnecessary stuff (often the government) and very often the objectives for it are unclear though it seems reasonable at the time.

You need to review and update objectives and measures and make sure they are SMART quite frequently, or you end up in this kind of situation very easily.

The question is – what are they really there for? Once this is clear then you can decide how to measure it.

Are you distracted by the wrong problems?

This week our government seems completely transfixed by the phone hacking scandal. And I do think it’s a scandal I am completely against this kind of behaviour.

But I also think that there are other serious problems that the government should be focussing on at the moment. Like the economy.

Of course, the media don’t help. This is a problem with the media itself, so it’s bound to be of more interest to them than other issues.

It’s easy to be distracted

The trouble is, when there are very serious problems to be tackled it’s very easy to get distracted by things that aren’t as serious. This is because you lose your ability to prioritise.

Prioritisation is a vital skill that you generally need more of when there are many problems to be solved.

How to prioritise

The first thing is to make sure you have a clear, SMART objective or goal. Once you have this, ask yourself what will enable you to achieve it.

Draw up a plan

It’s always good to have a plan. Even if you change it later, it’s still a good thing to start with one. It helps you to keep focussed on the right things rather than lurching from one thing to another all the time.

Reassess you plan

Lastly, keep checking the plan and update it if you need to. Often new problems crop up that cause extra work or simply divert you from your goals. Make sure you keep your plan up to date so you are always working on the things that will help you the most.

What’s the difference between good and great training?

How do you measure your training? Here’s a question I came across recently.

What’s the difference between good and great training?

We all know the difference between good and bad training, but it’s harder to tell the difference between ‘good’ and ‘great’ training.

Perhaps it’s not as hard as all that.

The results matter

Ultimately, the real test is: did it work? What are people doing differently as a result of the training?

Even if a trainer is using all the best techniques and tools, the training is only any good if it works. It’s the same with anything.

A clear objective

That’s why it’s so useful to have a really clear objective for your training. So often I’ve been asked for ‘a presentation skills course’. When I’ve asked the client what they want people to be able to do differently by the end of the training they have often had no clear idea.

Here’s how to structure a training objective:

All delegates are able to present the safety information so that the members of their team know how to use the new equipment safely by the end of the day.

If, after your delegates have been out and presented to their teams, everyone is using the equipment safely, then your training has been successful.

For more help with training, see our workshop on Training Skills

Strategy – the right one for the right situation

Are your strategies up to date?

We all have strategies that we use in particular situations. If you want to be successful you need to make sure you are using the right strategy in the right situation.

Do you remember your parents making you finish all the food on your plate when you were young? They may have even said you could not have your pudding till you had finished your vegetables.

That was probably a useful strategy to get you to eat the healthy food with all the vitamins in.

Out of date strategies

Now you are older, are you using the same strategy? This strategy is not a very good one for maintaining a healthy weight. You need a different strategy, because your objective is different.

But we tend to get comfortable with strategies that we grew up with.

Do not interrupt

When you were young, were you told not to interrupt others? Not to speak till you were spoken to? Many people were.

Others grew up with a strategy of interrupting when they wanted to speak.

If you are from the first group in a meeting with people from the second group, you will have trouble being heard.

The right strategy

Neither strategy is wrong, you just need to know which to use when.

The strategy you choose depends on your objective and your situation. But many people don’t consciously make a decision to use a particular strategy; they just carry on doing what they have always done, even though the situation has changed.

It is time to review your strategies and see which are working and which need to be updated.

Start with checking your objectives and what you are doing to achieve them. Is it working? If not, it might be you need to change your strategy.

5 Big change mistakes - 1 The wrong objective

5 Big mistakes when implementing change - 1 The wrong objective

One of the big mistakes people make when they are implementing change is not getting the objective right at the beginning.

Make sure you have a SMART objective

Make sure you are clear on what it is you need to achieve through the changes you are planning. The wrong objective (or no objective at all) will lead you down the wrong path.

Time spent on this can seem like a waste when you are keen to get on or there is an emergency – perhaps when the creditors are banging on the door. But it will be worth it.

Ask yourself some questions:

• What do we need to achieve?
• How would we know we had achieved it?
• How would you know you were making progress?
• When do we need to achieve it by?
• What would it look like?
• How do we need it to be in six months?
• How do we need it to be in a year?

Don’t just do this on your own. Ask your team. Run it by others to see if it makes sense.

Don’t worry about how you are going to achieve it at this stage, just what it is you need to achieve.

For example:
Imagine your sales have dropped and the revenue is reduced.
You might start with an objective like:

“Reduce costs.”

This objective is not very specific. What is it you need to achieve?

“Run the company within a new budget”
“Increase revenue”

What budget and what revenue do you need?

“Run the company within a budget of £XX this year”
“Increase the revenue to £YY per year by end 2014”

There are many other objectives that come under these and you need to discuss them with those involved. Don’t start working out how you are going to achieve it at this stage. I know it’s very tempting, but it’s a distraction from getting your objectives clear.

The next posting on big mistakes in implementing change – not involving people early enough – comes out on Thursday 19th May.

For a summary of five big mistakes when implementing change see this article:

5 Big mistakes to avoid when making change

Are you wasting money on events?

Have you ever been to a conference and come away wondering why you went?

I’ve spoken at conferences like that myself and been to quite a few. They are the ones where there seems to be a vast budget, lots of ‘goodies’ that get handed to you, but no clear idea what the purpose of the event is.

They are not so frequent now, but they still happen.

One of our clients told me about a discussion with one of his clients recently. They wanted him to make a film for this event. When he asked them what the objective of the film was, they had no idea – but they were planning to spend thousands on it.

The cost of events

Events cost a fortune to organise and to carry out. But that’s not the only cost. There is also the cost of the people attending the event. For in-company events, this can be huge, but it’s rarely considered.

How to avoid extra costs and make events worthwhile

You need to have clear objectives.

Try asking yourself these questions:

• What do I want to be different at the end of this event?
• What do I want people to do differently?
• What do I want them to say when they leave?
• What do I want them to say about the event when they get back to the office?

And, most importantly:

• Why are we holding this event?
• How would we know that it was successful?