Importance of Effective Goal-Setting - Essay Example

Management & Organization Importance of effective goal setting For any organization both profit and non-profit making, it is critical to set long term and short term goals since these are an critical element of and effective strategic organizational culture. Goals and objective should be both measurable and created within a time frame in which they are expected to be achieved, at the end of the day, although setting out a clear organizational purpose through goals does not guarantee success, it absence makes failure almost always inevitable. Organizational goals can often be found in the mission and vision statements through which the firm defines its intentions and clearly stipulates what it hopes to achieve through its activities (Catley and Daft, 2008). Any organization stands to benefit significantly from setting out clear purposes for itself, for one, when goals and objectives are set, the employees can be focused on the same things. Goals and objectives show employees what are the priorities for a given period of time or in a specific project and thus they can direct their effort in an organized way as they will have a point of reference from which they will weigh how their current work impacts on the overall goals. In addition, the management is better placed to make executive decisions when they are deciding which projects to spend resources on or which members of staff should be assigned what tasks based on their ability to work in line with the present objectives. Secondly, organizational goals have a significant and positive impact on the employee’s motivation, working without goals especially in the contemporary work environment where projects activities are often split up among specialized individuals or groups could result in employees losing the feel that they are part of something bigger than them. However, when the purpose of the work they are doing has clearly been defined and goals are tied to external awards such as recognition or prizes and promotions, the staff will naturally strive for excellence. Having a clear and present purpose tends to increase the group cohesion and build the team work in an organization, this is because when employees are aware of the bigger picture, they will be cognizant of the fact that it will only be achieved if they all corporate and work as a team. Objectives have the advantage of helping employees and managers to recognize the role of each individual and this way, they will be more inclined to work in harmony and respect the importance of everyone else to the project. The value of employees is inherently tied to the projects and in which they are involved, ergo, the process of setting goals increases their feel of being part of the project and when goals are set up in such a way that each has a specified role to play they acquire a sense of ownership. Effective goals are not management oriented and they are seen as goals for every member of the firm, when objectives are set and the success of the firm is personalized into the success of the staff. At the end of the day, it is also self-evident that setting up objectives and goals provides a sense of measurability, when setting goals; one should apply the SMART principle which requires that they are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, and Relevant and timely, using these, the employers can assess the extent to which objectives are being followed and goals achieved. How to encourage flow of creative ideas from employees Sometimes when managers try to get idea from their staff of to have them contribute in meetings they run into the challenge of passive participants who sometimes simply seem to drift off and fail to participate. In such a situation, I could use several strategies to encourage them to contribute and nurture a flow of ideas in the discourse. For one, I can have the meeting in an informal setting, ideas require innovation and thinking outside the box, therefore I could hold the meeting after hours or if the budget and time allow in an external environment say during an outing or team building retreat. The main advantage of this approach is that the staff will be relaxed and more likely to freely express themselves, which is an excellent environment for promoting creativity. However, a shortcoming of this approach is that they may not take the issue very seriously due to the informal setting and they may end up coming with irrelevant ideas and can easily get distracted unless the meeting is carefully controlled albeit without resorting to convectional office formality which would be self-defeating on my part. One of the reasons people fail to participate in meeting is because they are not sure what they are about and would not wish to embarrass themselves. I would therefore ensure to keep everyone fully informed about all the elements of the meeting and my expectation so that they do not have to rush in the last few minutes to understand what the meeting entails. Furthermore, by giving them the information in advance, everyone will have time to carry out independent research and this increases the possibility of their coming up with new and good ideal as well as making everyone feel comfortable and competent (Yuki, & Heaton, 2002). There could be a challenge in this however since sometimes springing questions on people without having given them time to think about the answers could actually result in spontaneous and creative answers. Given that the objective of the meeting is to gather creative ideas from the staff, proving them with information beforehand may result in their researching but probably coming up with what has already been tried before and therefore compromising originality and creativity. I would also apply open-ended questions since I am aware that they provide the respondents with more latitude within which to frame their answer, closed questions tend to limit the scope of the response and could potentially block out some creative opinions that questions may not cover. In addition, by using unstructured question, I will be making the discussion audience centric such that it does not have to revolve around me or a set of preset queries. This however brings about a shortcoming in that answers may digress and the respondents may drift off to irrelevant matters and end up wasting time in the name of open-mindedness and creativity. In conclusion, when one wants to get creative ideas from their staff, they needs must take the time to create a relaxed environment and encourage to self-expression so as to boost the flow of innovative ideas (De Jong & Den Hartog, 2007). However they should also be careful to control these open ended sessions to prevent the disruptions and distractions that can divert the discourse to irrelevant topics. Short lecture in a management class Giving a speech on the topic “Are we all leaders in contemporary organizations?” I would focus on the various leadership theories that propose leaders and followers should all be involved in the process of leadership. There are several theories of leadership that involve inclusive participation of employees in decision making and these include transformational and democratic leadership (Woods, 2004); however, I would underscore the fact that although they have often been proven to be effective, they are not always applied ad and many members of various organizations precluded from leadership. The participative model of management is referred to by several names such as shared leadership and employee empowerment dispersed leadership among others. For any organization to be effective, management must recognize the contribution of individual employees irrespective of their rank or skill level, and this allows for him or her to consult or consider them when making decisions. For example in an IT firm if the managers makes decision without consulting the programmers, may result in confusion and errors in the long run. When leaders recognize the importance of the roles played by various members of staff in their organizations, they find it easy to share power directly through delegating administrative responsibility or empowering employees to make autonomous decisions. Even if the manager has power, they are obligated to share it with the employees since they cannot be the best at everything. I would stress that employees actually act a leaders in several capacities and situations although they may not always be aware of it. For example, when employees participate in meetings where they exchange ideas and brainstorm; they use their individual expertise to form the opinions and ultimately the decisions of managers, which is indirectly a form of leadership. In addition, in many contemporary organizations, leaders engage in democratic management in which they constantly consider the opinions of their follower and base decisions on it (Malone, 2004). This is largely a reflection of the political environment in most countries where democratic governance is practiced. However, this is not universal and even in the modern corporate and business world, as there are still situations where employees are there to be seen and not heard and exclusively the upper management makes leadership decisions. Admittedly, several organizations apply autocratic leadership where the upper management has the final say and hardly if ever consults the lower echelons. Therefore while we can indeed all be leaders in an ideal environment where everybody’s view is respected, it is not currently the case. References Catley, S. Daft, R. (2008) Management in New Zealand. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. De Jong, J. P., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2007). How leaders influence employees innovative behaviour. European Journal of innovation management, 10(1), 41-64. Malone, T. W. (2004). The future of work: How the new order of business will shape your organization, your management style, and your life. Harvard Business School Press. Woods, P. A. (2004). Democratic leadership: drawing distinctions with distributed leadership. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 7(1), 3-26 Yuki, G. A., & Heaton, H. (2002). Leadership in organizations. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Read More