How successful your team can become depends on how you manage your own objectives

In many organizations the mission and vision trickle down on a yearly basis in the form of management and personal objectives. Normally, every layer of management in the hierarchy links eventually upwards to the overall company objectives.

However, it is not a necessity that the company objectives cascade down without translation or applying some common sense. 

As I brought up his topic earlier, I would like to give you some of my personal suggestions, how you can influence the setting of your own management objectives.

For starters, I am convinced that doing nothing before you receive your yearly objectives and targets, minimizes your chances to get them altered to almost zero. The one thing you need to take to heart is that if you want to have a chance to influence the setting of next year's objectives you need to start influencing your manager well in advance. This means starting well before the beginning of the process.

So how to do you do this?

First of all you need to get to grips with your own objectives yourself. 

Define your own objectives, as if you were your own manager. Make them (look) challenging, but definitely achievable. And obviously, describe them as being SMART (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria).

Be aware of the amount of objectives. More objectives will blur your focus in the end, but also create the risk of being too fine grained. Too few objectives could impact your end of year evaluation if one of those objectives was not met.

Be aware of accepting quantitative objectives. If you do not know your numbers (I wrote some other blogs on this topic) you cannot judge if numbers you will be tasked with make sense. It is not uncommon that your manager just takes last year's (productivity) data and simply increases them (as will be done towards your manager 😉). However, there is a limit to what you can reach as you should know best the capabilities and limits of your team. If last years numbers were hitting that limit, make sure you give that feedback before your management is determining them (instead of boosting your reputation to your management that you made the almost impossible, possible!).

Be aware, that many managers are likely to 'hedge' their numbers when they cascade them down to their managers. This means the total of the quantitative objective of all the reporting managers exceeds the objective set for him/her. So, if one of the reporting managers 'fails', there is still a very likely chance he/she will make the numbers. I am not really against the notion of hedging in this form, which I more see as a form of risk management. However, as hedged objectives may be challenging, I still expect them to be achievable as well! Knowing this in advance, you could influence your manager about the distribution, lower or higher. If you can foresee that you can easily accept a higher load vs your peers, volunteer!

Be aware, that if you have career ambition, it will only get meaning from what you achieve. So besides having challenging objectives, also consider to define a clear personalized objective reflecting your ambition, such as added responsibility, your manager can sign up for. If your manager is well aware in advance of your ambitions, he/she can also timely influence his/her management if needed.

Be aware of the presence of a learning objective. This is to get endorsement for investment in you as an employee. Everyone needs education. So are you. Make sure your objective for learning reflects your ambition or your improvement points.

Be aware of cultural differences. If your manager is outside NL and from another nationality, adapt your communication. As I basically write my blogs from my own background, I realize that the Dutch way of communicating is not always appreciated and well-received. Maybe I will write some more about this topic, but for now I want to emphasize that whatever you want to influence and achieve needs to be carefully packaged in the right tone of voice, not necessary your default tone...

Be aware that if you need clear (upper)management support to achieve an objective (budget, mandate or resources), you build this into your objective. If you do not get this support, you can timely warn your management that the objective is not achievable and should be excluded from your performance review. It would be the same as asking you to "row to the other side of the river, with no oars".

I am sure your manager will appreciate at some point in time that you help define your (team) objectives. Some managers, usually the ones who have a large span of control, will even be very happy, because it saves them the burden of being creative, having to set so many objectives.

Finally, the header stated "How successful your team can become depends on how you manage your own objectives". After the first hurdle to get them set (hopefully more realistic and achievable), I would advise you to review your objectives at least on a quarterly basis.

We never know what the future will hold. So, if the circumstances change in such a way that an objective is not achievable, does not make sense anymore, or you see there are new opportunities appearing with better outcomes, do not hesitate to challenge your manager. But always ensure whatever you agree upon next on is reflected in your objectives. Best to write it down in your own words (who writes, who stays)... 

And towards your team, please treat the objectives as a guidance and direction. Do not allow time to be spend on objectives that are not achievable (anymore). Use your common sense and professional attitude to get the best out of your team throughout the year and overachieve will also become likely.