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Today's Insights: How can my "idea" become the team's "practice"?
Table of Contents
Introduction
Why do you ask your subordinates to write out plans for the next three to five years, but the content they submit always lacks execution direction like a headless fly, and even seems to have no need for execution? Please pause and clarify: Have you written down clear development goals? This is my personal testimony: The biggest sadness for company managers is that no one pays attention to the instructions they give.
Current Situation
This general manager of a traditional manufacturing industry has served the company for more than 20 years. Although he started from the front line, he is not ambiguous at all in work management. For 10 consecutive years, we have been responsible for supplying to major international manufacturers. The turnover rate has been controlled below 5%. Almost all the five factories in Taiwan are model factories. More importantly, the company has made stable profits in the long term. I really want to emphasize this, as it exemplifies what a model enterprise should be.
He can be called a model general manager. In order to keep up with the market, he realized that it was necessary to increase the efficiency of cross-department communication, hoping to increase collaboration and reduce communication costs. Therefore, he decided to introduce a one-page management form to prepare for the company's future transformation. Is it too much to ask first-level cadres with an average seniority of more than 15 years to write down goals for the next three years? The general manager and I speculated.
This group of cadres who have been with the general manager for many years are definitely the people who know the general manager’s thoughts best. Therefore, the general manager directly assigned the task and asked everyone to write down “the most important goals and plans for the next three years.” As a result, the General Affairs Department wrote only one goal: convert the financial system. The entire schedule does not provide a time because: "We are waiting for the IT department to find the manufacturer before we can come up with an accurate date."
The sales department has written two goals, one is to maintain old customers and the other is to find new customers. When asked who the new customers are, the associate said: "We only know which new customers we want to sell to based on what new products are coming from the R&D side." The supply chain management department also proposed only one goal. It planned to launch a monthly supply chain report to customers in the hope of assisting business colleagues in quoting. However, the manager had no idea that there would be AI big data in the world.
After the general manager read everyone's schedule, a sad expression flashed across his face. He knew these people were in trouble, but he didn't expect it to be so serious. Management guru Peter Drucker once said: "To become an effective supervisor, you must do the most important things first, and don't do the less important things!" European management guru Fredmund Malik also said: "Focus is the key to managing an organization." Indeed, the most important essence of goal management is that the top leader takes the lead and points out the general direction of the team's operations, and then all followers set their own goals based on this to implement the leader's aspirations.
Management Principles
If you want to "set goals individually", it starts to test the managers' thinking - what is the most important thing in their departments? Often, we are so accustomed to routine matters that we fail to raise our heads and examine whether we are moving in the right direction. At this time, please start thinking about the following three things, which can help you complete writing important goals for the year to accomplish the most important things.
Implementing Goals
First, you need to clarify: Is this a goal or a means? A "goal" is the result you want to achieve, which is consequentialism. It means that through certain methods, you want to take the team to a certain terminal. "Means", also known as methods, exist to help achieve goals. A goal can have several means of achieving it, so managers should clarify what is a goal and what are means. For example, if the goal is to increase the business unit from the existing three people to five people, this description is not a goal. What we need to think about is: with five business members, what kind of results do we want to achieve? Do you want to develop two new customers? Or enter a new career field?
Second, you need to think about the resources at hand! After understanding the goals and means, you need to take stock of what resources you have on hand to achieve the goals. Regardless of the size of the enterprise, resources are limited, and how the resources are allocated determines the layout of the strategy. The strategic layout may vary depending on the situation, and there will usually be a choice to focus on one side. This requires discussing the three elements of goals, resources, and means with the CEO. Through comprehensive thinking and grasping the key points of the previous level of management, only then can we set important goals for our department.
What is common among us is that we set goals without understanding the general direction, and blindly want to add people, buy machines, increase budgets, or rely on another department. Just imagine, if the goal is achieved not by ourselves or the team, a lot of resources will be needed. When outsourcing and requesting resources are beyond our control, and when we fail to consider the limited resources, we can boldly assert that the chance of meeting the standards should be very low.
Third, you need to think about the rhythm of the goal execution. The rhythm of the goal means that there are short, medium, and long-term ideas in the goal. First, focus on the human and material resources needed to implement the short-term, but at the same time, start preparing for the next stage of goals. For example, when building a new factory, preparations for cadre rotation are also being made; for example, when you are busy introducing an ERP system, you must also start thinking about integrating system data with marketing activities.
It should be noted here that the "waterfall" approach to goal setting is generally taboo: only after the first goal is achieved can the second goal be started. Because once the progress is not as expected, or even the first goal fails, it is equivalent to declaring that the entire series of subsequent tasks cannot be executed.
The last thing to remind is that managers should clearly write down their goals! Write them down! Please don’t keep them in your head and keep complaining that writing goals is a waste of time. Goals are for communication, and your task is to let everyone on the team know the goals and arrange their work accordingly.
Conclusion
Therefore, for the general manager of the aforementioned case, I can only say that he should try to communicate more and extend his willpower to the decision-making team to make the future development direction of the company more identifiable. Then, please give the decision-making team around you some time to adapt to the new changes. In the end, don’t overprotect them, but try to make your subordinates responsible for the execution results. Only in this way can the goal be penetrating and execution will be generated!
