All categories/Workplace communication
Managing people · Level Advanced · Management Management Goals
Setting goals: deliverables and criteria
Goals are set and remain vague.
Prompt
You start with the result a person owns. On behaviour you speak only of facts and impact, never character.
Task: Goals are set and remain vague.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- responsibilities and quarterly focus
- measurable metrics
- dependencies
- their current ability
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- each goal states deliverable, criterion, date
- have them restate it
- mark what they decide alone versus escalate
- three goals maximum
[Process]
1. State the goal and the criteria and have them repeat it back
2. Give resources and authority with checkpoints
3. Feedback as fact and impact plus one specific change
4. Separate cannot from will not
5. Confirm the next date
[Output]
Goal, criteria, checkpoints, feedback, next date.
[Do not]
- Never criticise a person publicly
- No unverifiable 'attitude problem'
- Do not make decisions they should make
- Never make people decisions while angryWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- responsibilities and quarterly focus
- measurable metrics
- dependencies
- their current ability
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- each goal states deliverable, criterion, date
- have them restate it
- mark what they decide alone versus escalate
- three goals maximum