Excerpts

Introduction How to Use This Book to Save Time and to Write Compelling Performance Goals Setting goals for your employees--or, more accurately, helping them set appropriate goals for themselves--is a very individualized and personal endeavor. Adding the right elements to the recipe, so to speak, therefore varies significantly depending on the individual's needs and aspirations. Still, your key focus always lies in customizing a blueprint or template for success to help your staff members find new ways of increasing their own productivity, which of course improves your departmental and ultimately company performance. Creating Development Plans for Employees So how exactly should you go about creating individual development plans for your subordinates, and, more importantly, how can this book help you get there? First and foremost, always ask your employees for their input. Without your subordinates' involvement, drafting development plans in goal statements becomes hit or miss. Second, realize that employees will remain loyal to their companies--regardless of headhunters' calls luring them away to greener pastures--as long as they're on a positive career growth trajectory and they feel appreciated for what they contribute. This so-called psychic income serves as the glue that binds workers to their organizations, and it's clearly the most significant element of any development plan. If you convince subordinates that achieving specific goals at work equates to adding vivid bullets to their resumes, then you'll develop an accomplishment mentality that enables your employees not only to motivate themselves but also to reinvent themselves in light of your organization's changing needs. That's where an average manager or supervisor steps up to become an outstanding leader. Great leaders know how to set up their subordinates for success. Then they simply step aside and get out of the way. When you describe the best bosses and mentors that you've had in your career, you're more than likely to use the verb "to be" rather than "to do." In fact, in all human relations, "beingness" typically trumps "doingness" because the greatest influencers on our lives were loving, supportive, caring, patient, and selfless in guiding us. And those traits all came much more from who they were than what they did. In other words, providing others direction and offering guidance is actually a lot easier than you think. It's simply a matter of being a selfless leader who's committed to balancing the company's needs with those of the individual worker. If you're able to make this one paradigm shift in your belief system--that great leaders focus on being rather than on doing--you'll cut a lot of stress out of your life and develop teams that will remain very loyal to you. Loyalty begets respect, respect begets devotion, and we all know that devoted employees will give you 110% of their efforts. In short, if you command employees from the top down, you'll get no more than 100% of their efforts out of their sense of compliance. But if you can touch their hearts and help them to love you as their boss and mentor, you'll build amazingly strong teams with lots of camaraderie and teamwork and, in so doing, catapult your own career to new heights. With these simple premises in mind, understand that you're not responsible for motivating your team. Motivation is internal, and I can't motivate you any more than you can motivate me. However, as a leader within your organization, you are indeed responsible for creating an environment in which people can motivate themselves. And that fine distinction is where this book can come in rather handy. More Than Just a List of Descriptive Phrases This book offers a lot more than just descriptive goal phrases outlining competencies and responsibilities. It provides wisdom and guidance on how to manage your career, lead your team more effectively, and inspire those around you to reach higher levels of individual performance and achievement. 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals will provide you with insightful strategies to accomplish more yourself as well as through others, to serve as an effective career mentor and coach, and to help your company stand out from its competition. For example, when it comes to motivating and leading your team, look to phrases like these to minimize misunderstanding and open the lines of communication: ● Encourage individuality and foster an environment of respect and inclusion. ● Recognize that perception is reality until proven otherwise; therefore, always hold yourself accountable for your own "perception management." ● Welcome and encourage others' feedback so that they are comfortable sharing minor concerns with you before they become major impediments. ● Nix conversations about politics, religion, or politically incorrect, nonwork-related issues, which are sure to foster resentment or frustration. ● Learn what you could change about your own behavior to invoke a different response in others. ● Understand that building on someone's strengths makes more sense than compensating for their weaknesses. Similarly, you can become a stronger career mentor and coach by helping your subordinates grow and develop in their own careers if you: ● Encourage others to engage in random acts of kindness. ● Find creative ways of surprising your customers. ● Focus on making bad relationships good and good relationships better. ● Look for new ways of reinventing the workflow in light of our company's changing needs. ● Think relationship first, transaction second. ● Realize that people can tell more about you by the depth of your questions than by the quality of your statements. ● Separate the people from the problem. ● Heed Mark Twain's adage: "If we were meant to talk more than we listen, we would have two mouths and one ear." ● Always provide two solutions for each question you ask or suggestion you raise. ● Employ right-brain imagination, artistry, and intuition plus left-brain logic and planning. ● Convert "yes . . . but" to "yes . . . and" statements to acknowledge the speaker's point of view and to share additional insights. Likewise, recognizing that managing in corporate America today is fraught with legal peril for the unsuspecting leader, keep sage guidance like the following in mind: ● Never promise confidentiality before knowing the nature of the question or request. ● Employ the attorney-client privilege by copying our in-house counsel, asking for a legal analysis and opinion, and limiting your audience to as few individuals as possible. ● Recognize that the fundamental claim of unfairness may become the basis for a legal charge of discrimination. Don't forget the importance of finding your own work-life balance and peace of mind as you face the daily grind and challenges that come your way throughout your career. ● Practice the adage, "What you want for yourself, give to another." ● Convince team members not to act on principle to the extent that their positions become rigid and self-justified, allowing for little compromise. ● Put others' needs ahead of your own, and expect them to respond in kind. ● Realize that people don't necessarily resist change; they just resist being changed. ● Accept that no one does anything wrong given their model of the world; therefore, look for common interests and underlying concerns if you need to heal a wound on your team. ● Ensure that your team communicates upward and asks for permission up front rather than for forgiveness after the fact. ● Teach what you choose to learn. ● Help your team find individual and creative solutions by asking, "I realize you don't know, but if you did know, what would your recommendation be?" ● Change your perspective, and you'll change your perception. Chock full of insightful guidance and career and leadership tips, this book is packed with useful information that you can apply any time of the year, not just during performance appraisals. So sit back and let 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals serve as a handy guide and guiding hand to walk you through the challenging task of helping your subordinates set not only their annual goals but also the measurable outcomes to ensure they've achieved them. Excerpted from 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals: Ready-to-Use Phrases That Really Get Results by Paul Falcone All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.