From the course: Managing Teams

Set worthwhile goals

From the course: Managing Teams

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Set worthwhile goals

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- Does your team have goals that excite you? Pause the video for a moment and consider this question. What do you find motivating, inspiring, perhaps a bit scary or maybe even fun about your work? Go ahead and think it over. Now that you have your notes, how do you feel about your list? Does it excite, motivate, inspire, scare, or spark joy? To help your team develop worthwhile goals, try using the WORTH framework. First, welcome input from the entire team in the goal-setting process. Schedule time to brainstorm and discuss goals your team will pursue. Letting employees have ownership of the goals they'll pursue is a great way to get their buy-in. Once you've heard their ideas, you can also offer a vision of your goals for the team and make connections to broader organizational goals and initiatives. Make sure you spend time giving the team context on how your team's work benefits the broader organization. This is often overlooked. It's important that employees feel their work is for a bigger purpose. Next, record goals and timelines using a goal-setting framework that makes sense for the work you're doing. Some popular ones are SMART and OKRs. Let's take a quick look at both. SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. OKRs are the objectives and key results. Here, the objectives are what you hope to accomplish, and the key results are the way you can measure your movement toward the objective. The significance of setting the right goals cannot be overstated. Make sure you've carved out enough time for your team to think through the details of the goals you'll be working toward. There are several courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library on this topic if you want to take a deeper dive into this. Recording the goals is an important step in team accountability, which takes me to the T in WORTH. Track progress openly. If you all work in one central place, a board or wall might be a good place to post your goals and track the status of each one. Some teams prefer to use a virtual dashboard that everyone can access. The point is, the goals you've established should be top of mind for everyone on the team, meaning everyone can easily access updates on the goals and their status at any point in time. Finally, hone team goals as needed. These don't have to be set in stone. To keep your team motivated, it's important that your goals are challenging and feasible. If you notice your team is way ahead of schedule, you might adjust a goal so that you can accomplish more. Or if you're running behind schedule, you might choose to change the target so that it's feasible. Getting a group of people to work together as a team requires patience, planning and strong communication. Use these five steps to ensure your teammates are giving their best effort in getting your team to your ultimate destination.

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