A toolkit to help you and your team set your annual goals.

To-do lists can be somewhat mindless to put together. You're given a task, and you jot it down. You think of a new idea to implement, you add it to the list. You receive a new grant and copy down the activities that need to be implemented. 

To-do lists certainly have their place (let's be honest, where would we be without them). But jumping straight into a list of actions without first thinking through why you're doing them and what you're trying to achieve can result in a lot of checked boxes but not a lot of impacts.

Since it's still January, now is the time to work with your team to step back and think about what you all want to achieve - your goals. And once you've done that, then you can get into 'the what' you'll do. We promise that those checked off "to-dos" will feel so much more satisfying when you take this approach.

We asked Maliasili's Chief Operating Officer (aka the guru of annual goal setting) to share advice on how you can set great goals and how you can help your team do the same.

Setting annual goals

Goals link your strategy to your team’s work →

• Your personal work goals should link to the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. You should very clearly see how what you will do and achieve will contribute to your organization’s success.

• Goals specify the role of each team member in furthering the objectives of the organization.

• Goals set a marker so you can evaluate progress and help you identify during the year if you need to adjust the course.

  • Also, the act of simply writing down goals increases the likelihood that you will achieve them.

Goals help teams and individuals set priorities →

• Teams are limited in time and resources, and setting and aligning on your big annual goals helps your team identify and then agree upon the most important things that serve the organization’s strategic plan in a given year.

• Some great ideas might not make it into goals for the year if there are not sufficient resources - including time - to get them done.

  • Goal setting implies making choices.

• By limiting the number of goals, you force people to articulate the critical areas of focus are for their work.

Goals provide motivation for employees →

• Use ‘stretch goals’ as a way to have your team challenge themselves. Then break those goals down by setting shorter-term targets.

• Include professional development goals too.

  • A LinkedIn study showed that 90% of employees would stay in a job longer if it helped them learn and grow.

    • This is a key strategy to reducing costly staff turnover. It is also a great way to help your team improve their performance and achieve even more great things for your organization.

Goals make performance assessment fair →

• Goals are a foundational component of performance assessment and set up team members for meaningful guidance and feedback.

• Studies have shown that two-thirds of employees want more feedback than they receive.

• Setting clear goals and work plans creates a framework for providing feedback.

Goals help guide your work plans →

• Work plans lay out the path to achieving those goals, setting employees up to succeed.

• The goal-setting and work planning process is ideally iterative, setting stretch goals and then diving into the practicalities of making it happen, and then reevaluating the goals to make sure that they are the right balance between challenging and attainable. 

• Differentiating between work plan activities and goals as the articulation of desired outcomes and results can help teams and individuals refocus on the big picture and the greater purpose of the work, not just getting absorbed in the day to day activities and execution.