by Alison Green
MANAGERS PLAY THE CRITICAL ROLE
Throughout the process of creating and using goals, their success or failure will hinge on how well you as the manager use them. If you give goals only a cursory look when they are proposed, do not refer to them in the regular course of business, and do not hold your staff members accountable for meeting them, they may well be nothing more than a bureaucratic hassle. If, however, you reinforce their importance throughout the process, you will find that your staffers pursue them vigorously, taking on more and more ownership and freeing you to focus on new and higher-impact work.
ASSESSING PERFORMANCE AGAINST GOALS: CREATING ACCOUNTABILITY
It sounds obvious, but too few organizations put it into practice: the extent to which your staff members achieve their goals should be an important component of their performance evaluations. We like to see managers evaluate their staff members on both what they did—that is, whether they achieved their goals and produced strong results—as well as how they did it. Frequently in the nonprofit world we’ve seen evaluations that focus only on the how component, commenting on whether a staff member collaborated well, showed up for work on time, or demonstrated particular skills. The how part does matter, but it should not overshadow the what. And if you want your staff to really work to achieve their goals, you must hold them accountable for the extent to which they succeed at that. (See the sample performance evaluations in Chapter Seven.) One specific implication of this is that if you set goals on a calendar-year cycle, your evaluations should happen around that cycle as well. We frequently see organizations with goals based on the calendar year but evaluations based on service anniversaries or dates of hire, which makes it next to impossible to include an assessment of whether staff members have actually met their goals for a given time period. (We realize that if you’re not the executive director, this timing may not be up to you, so we encourage you to show this passage to your executive director or head of HR.)
Accountability for achievement of goals (or lack thereof) should include a learning component as well. By stepping back with your staff to assess their performance against goals, you can discuss why they succeeded or fell short, and you can work with them to draw lessons that will inform the pursuit of their goals in the next cycle.
GOALS AT THE ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL
If you’re leading an entire organization, setting goals for what the organization as a whole will accomplish can be as powerful a device as it is at the individual level. In fact, there’s no conceptual difference between organizational goals and goals for an individual. Many of your organizational goals might in practice be goals owned by specific individuals. For instance, your overall fundraising goal might rise to the level of an organizational goal, but ultimately your development director might be responsible for it. (See Tool 3.3 for sample organizational goals.)
Just as with goals for individuals, you should have a relatively small number of goals for the organization as a whole that capture the most important work for a given time period. As with individuals, one way to think of good organizational goals is to answer the question, “If we accomplish nothing else, what would we need to achieve for this year to be successful?” Given that, you don’t want to establish thirty organizational goals. Finding the most important three to five goals can be incredibly powerful. These goals often fall into two main areas: programmatic priorities, which are goals directly connected to the organization’s mission, and capacity-building priorities, such as fundraising, staffing, or technology.
In order for your organizational goals to be strategic, they need to represent the broad direction of the organization. Organizations differ in how they establish this. Many engage in formal strategic planning processes in which they lay out a three- to five-year vision for where they want to be and how they plan to get there. Others might skip the full strategic plan but still establish longer-term goals—say, for three years—articulating how much progress they want to make. Finally, other organizations might feel they operate under so much uncertainty that setting longer-term aims is meaningless and may not look beyond more than one year.
In establishing organizational goals, consider these three components:
Process. One way to think of organizational goals is to consider them the executive director’s own goals, which they essentially are. In the same way a department head would create goals by taking the lead but involving her team, so too should the executive director create goals by driving the process but involving her staff. And since the executive director is the ultimate owner of the organizational goals, she should look at them frequently, assessing progress toward them and determining any additional steps that are needed. To ensure her team is fully invested in the goals as well, she might also make the organizational goals the basis for periodic step-backs with her management team.
Timing. Organizations should align the goal-setting process with their budgeting process, since goals should inform decisions about resource allocation. GOAL SETTING FOR START-UPS
If your organization is a start-up in its first year or two, is in a particularly “entrepreneurial” (read: chaotic) phase, or is in the midst of a fast-moving campaign, you might be operating in an environment that’s changing quickly and you’re still sorting out how you’ll make the biggest impact. In that case, you might consider modifying your approach to goal setting in the following ways:
Set and review progress against goals on a shorter cycle (every three or six months or even every month, depending on your context). Establish regular review meetings and simple tracking systems to support this faster cycle.
Since you’re operating with greater uncertainty, embrace subjective criteria for goals such as, “Maximize opportunities that come at us to . . .”
If you’re in an intensive building stage, your goals might focus more on activities than outcomes for the first year or two (for instance, “Get Web site up and running by November” versus “Build Web site into a hub that generates 20,000 hits a month”).
Recognize that shifts in goals may happen, but make the shifts explicit. Don’t allow them to just happen on their own, and be sure to distinguish between distractions and true changes in direction that require adjusting your targets.
Accountability. As with individual goals, there should be accountability around whether the organization as a whole meets its goals. One of the best ways to ensure this is through reporting to the board and to funders, both of whom can hold the organization and its leaders accountable. In the case of the board, an assessment of the organization’s progress against its goals should form a significant part of the executive director’s annual evaluation. Funders, of course, make up their own minds about whether the organization made significant progress toward goals, and act accordingly. Executive directors can create accountability internally as well by publicly sharing their assessments of progress with staff and openly discussing their thoughts on how the organization might improve in the future. And depending on the results, executive directors can also ensure that their organizations celebrate accomplishments, a critical step too often neglected in the rush to begin pursuing goals for the next cycle.
MISSION STATEMENTS
Whether or not your organizational goals are grounded in a longer-term plan, setting goals and managing to them presumes you know what broader end they’re for: what your organization is trying to accomplish. That’s where your organization’s mission statement comes in.
If you’ve ever seen meaningless mission statements posted on walls (“Our mission is to delight our customers” hanging behind the counter of the local deli with the rude wait staff), you might approach the idea of mission statements with a bit of cynicism. We’ve found, though, that getting clear on your organization’s fundamental purpose—its reason for being—can be incredibly powerful. For instance, one of our clients has struggled because half of his staff thinks the organization’s fundamental purpose is to deliver a product, while the other half thinks the purpose is to
train the people who deliver the product. That basic lack of alignment plays out on a daily basis in tension over how to prioritize activities.
What makes for a good mission statement? People approach this differently, but in our view, a mission statement should be a concise, action-oriented statement of your organization’s fundamental purpose. The best mission statements we’ve seen begin with a verb (like reduce or protect or make) and then a description of the problem the organization leaders want to address or the conditions they want to foster—for instance:
Make quality, affordable health services available to all Americans.
Protect the rights of women to make safe and informed reproductive choices.
Confront and end national and global cruelties to animals.
As a leader, you should use your mission statement constantly. When you describe what you do in your literature or to someone new, your mission statement should be a standard refrain, so that everyone has a shared, fundamental understanding of what you’re about. And in deciding whether to take on major new streams of work for the organization, the first question you ask should be, “Does this advance our mission?” Fundamentally your mission should be the compass you steer by.
Once they’ve defined their fundamental purpose, organizations sometimes then add on a statement of strategies, which explains how they will go about achieving their purpose. For instance, the mission statement of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is “to build the political power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community from the ground up [purpose]. We do this by training activists, organizing broad-based campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation, and by building the organizational capacity of our movement [strategy].”
SUMMING UP: EXPECTATIONS, ENGAGEMENT, AND ACCOUNTABILITY WRIT LARGE
Meaningful roles help you delegate fundamental responsibilities, and goals help you set clear expectations for what you want to see accomplished. Checking in on progress against the goals is your way of staying engaged, so that you maximize the possibility of success. Creating accountability around the extent to which your team meets its goals reinforces the importance of the goals and begins setting expectations for the next cycle. Simple, no?
KEY POINTS
Meaningful roles fully capture expectations of what a great employee would do in the job, thereby shifting the weight of responsibility for success in a particular area over to the employee who holds that role, keeping the manager from having to identify, delegate, and manage every task that comes up.
Roles define the what and how of a staff member’s responsibilities, and goals define the “how much.”
SMART goals are strategic, measurable, ambitious, realistic, and time-bound.
Goals should measure outcomes rather than activities whenever possible.
To be effective, goals must be used in the normal course of business throughout the year. Staff should check them regularly, managers should hold regular meetings to check on progress, and executive directors should be deeply committed to doing everything possible to meet them.
Goals should be aligned with other organizational processes, such as annual budgeting and personnel evaluations.
Executive directors can use goals to set broad priorities and steer the direction of the organization.
Additional Reading
James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), especially “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” (pp. 91–114).
David La Piana, Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World (New York: Turner Publishing, 2008).
TOOL 3.1
SAMPLE GOAL DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
This sample goal development process serves as a guide to help you design your organization’s own process. The exact steps, dates, and duration for each phase will depend on your organization’s size, its previous experience with setting goals, and the existence of a longer-term strategic plan, if any, that sets out priorities. The example here assumes an organization operating on a calendar-year cycle of January 1 to December 31.
I. Set Timeline
Executive director (ED) drafts rough timeline for setting next year’s goals (aligning them with budget cycle and performance evaluations) and shares with senior management team. (Aug. 20)
II. Identify Organizational Priorities Based on Broad Strategic Direction
[This phase may be substantially shortened or skipped if your organization has an existing strategic direction or plan (formal or informal) from which it can easily derive the upcoming year’s priorities.]
In one meeting or more, ED and department heads discuss and ultimately agree on a list of initiatives and areas of focus for the coming year, and identify high-level implications for each department. (Sept. 10–20)
III. Develop Departmental Goals and Plans
With general organizational priorities in mind, department heads brainstorm on their own or with their teams to reflect on past year’s progress and identify potential areas of focus for the year ahead. (Sept. 25)
Department heads meet individually with ED to discuss department’s progress from prior year, lessons learned, and goals for the year ahead. (Sept. 28–Oct. 10)
Department heads take ED input and draft actual goals for the year ahead, getting further input from team members as desired, and ensuring goals are backed up by plans. Department heads send draft to ED.
ED drafts goals and plans for any areas for which ED is directly responsible. (Oct. 20)
Department heads and ED meet to review draft goals and plans. (Oct. 25–Nov. 5)
Department heads make any revisions and send final version to ED. (Nov. 7)
IV. Finalize Key Organizational Goals
ED pulls from departmental and own plan to create summary goals document, reflecting key areas of organizational focus for the year ahead. ED ensures key goals collectively add up to desired organizational progress toward strategic direction. (Nov. 10)
ED discusses proposed final draft of organization’s goals with board of directors. Board approves final draft (as is or with changes). (Dec. 1)
V. Create Individual Action Plans
Department heads direct staff to draft individual goals and short-term action plans based on departmental goals and action plans. (Nov. 15–30)
Department heads meet with individual staff to refine individual goals and action plans and ensure teams collectively cover areas of departmental responsibility. (Dec. 3–13)
Department heads meet with staff for performance evaluations covering prior year. (Dec. 10–23)
Individual goals will become part of each staff member’s performance evaluation.
VI. Roll Out Organizational Goals and Action Plans
ED convenes full staff for meeting to discuss goals for the year ahead. One-page version of organization’s key goals distributed in hard copy for easy posting and reference. (Dec. 5)
Development Director highlights organization’s top goals in holiday fundraising drive. (Dec. 8–31)
Potential funders will love the fact that you have meaningful goals.
TOOL 3.2
SAMPLE SUCCESS SHEET: SETTING GOALS
What will make this a great year?
Goals for This Year Last Year Result (If Any) Key Tactics (Emphasize New/Improved)
Add at least 20,000 new subscribers to our e-mail list. 8,000 Promote list on Web site and on printed materials.
Add a sign-up box to online action thank-you page.
Build relationships with key bloggers, so that we have at least 5 national, well-read bloggers we can call on for coverage. NA Identify 10 targets by Feb. 1.
Questions for Discussion
1. Are the goals ambitious enough? Do they represent significant progress?
2. How realistic are these goals? Do you have real plans to achieve them? Will the tactics listed be sufficient to drive the growth we’d need
?
3. If we achieved these goals, would this be a successful year? Do they capture what we most care about?
4. Other questions we should discuss?
Reasonable people should be able to agree on whether you met your goal, so you should paint a clear finish line with numbers or qualitative descriptors—for instance, “get in shape” is not particularly measurable, but “lose five pounds” or even “develop six-pack abs” is. Also, rather than setting goals annually, you might use a shorter cycle, like every three or six months.
TOOL 3.3
SAMPLE ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS
State Health Care Now
January to December 2012
PRIORITY 1: Create significant traction for universal coverage legislation
Goal 1: By Dec. 31, universal state health coverage bill introduced in one chamber with public support of either key committee chair or leadership.
Goal 2: By Dec. 31, secure commitment of at least 75 percent of declared governor candidates to include universal state coverage in campaign platform.
PRIORITY 2: Intensify and broaden grassroots support
