Goal setting

When you set specific, measurable and time-targeted objectives for an assignment, project or a process, it is known as goal setting. At a personal level it stays confined to working towards your objective, mostly financial or career based. In business, goal setting has immense importance. It allows employees to put in their best efforts and compete against each other and at the same time give the employers to acknowledge, compensate and reward every effort on a common scale.

However, since by the very nature of the process goal setting measures only the output, many managers feels that it may harm the process overall by employees picking up unjustifiable means to reach the desirable ends. Also since provided with a clear set of goals, employees lose the habit of ideation and exploring other avenues that can add to growth. Many managers are of the opinion that without defining the exact goals, it is enough to motivate the people to do their best.

However, despite contradictory views, goal setting stays a popular measure of defining year end achievement across the world. But it must be borne in mind that goal setting should be a participative exercise rather than just being a target defined by the management and laid down upon the employees. Also the employees must be helped to train themselves, get adapted to the techniques and processes to achieve goals. For example in a sales process employees will be de motivated if they are given a humongous target that is being decided by the management, without being given necessary training on sales techniques, sales process etc. Such illogical exercise may have adverse effect on the organization performance and make it susceptible to further problems like attrition, poor performance, and loss of reputation. In case you are planning to have a goal setting exercise for your company you can visit www.wendyberry.com.au.