You hear it everywhere: goal s t elling helps! And we, too, are huge fans of it. But if you're not used to setting goals and you've never experienced what it can do for you, it's only natural that you won't jump when someone tells you to set goals. After all, it's really not easy. René de Jong, marketing expert and purebred entrepreneur, knows all about it. His personal ambition ; helping people achieve their goals by working smarter and more efficiently. We talked to him about, you guessed it: setting goals!
Taking steps
"To empower teams, it is very important to set a goal so that everyone knows where you are going," René begins. "I have worked at several organizations that had no goals, and then the daily work often just ripples along. Steps are made then, but they are directionless." Do you really want to make big steps? Then, according to René, it is essential to set an ambitious goal. "Based on that ambitious goal, you and your team work out sub-goals that are very concrete. From these goals come actions. I'm not saying those actions are always going to work in the end, but it does help you move in the right direction."
Double up!
But how do you arrive at such an ambitious goal ? "You do this together. I ask my team what they think, compared to last year, would be a realistic target. For example, if they say that growth in sales to 5 million should be achievable, I immediately do the math backwards. This then turns out to be 20 percent on top of last year, and thus reasonably safe in my eyes. Then I ask them what we would have to do to double it. And then people start thinking and come up with all kinds of creative ideas. Then I ask what would they do if we wanted to triple it? At some point you get to a point where it's really too much and then it gets stuck," René says. The goal should be exciting and certainly challenge employees, but it should also be realistic. So you're actually trying to stretch the goal. Okay, the goal is set, and then what?
"Then we are going to reduce this objective to manageable chunks. We are going to look at what that means in outline for each quarter and in detail for quarter 1. What do we have to start with and what obstacles need to be removed is the basis for this. Everyone in the team will look individually at what their contribution to this is. What do you want to achieve and how will you contribute to that greater goal? This immediately shows you where everyone's qualities lie. And so you end up with a division of roles in that whole game. I always compare it to a marathon: one person is just much better at running the marathon and the other prefers to take care of the training schedule. And that's really fun, you immediately notice that the team is in action and they start thinking about how they're going to reach the goal together."
Stick behind the door
By setting a goal, employees know where they stand, and in addition, it is very important for the organization to know what each team's goals are. It acts as a stick when everyone knows where your team wants to go. "If you tell everyone that you are going to run that marathon, then everyone is going to ask how you are doing. The moment you then have to tell them you failed, you fall through. We humans obviously don't want to fail, so it motivates us to keep going. In addition, people can be more understanding when you don't do something that doesn't contribute to your goals."
The flip side
Unfortunately, goal setting is not always rosy. In fact, it sometimes happens that employees don't support your goals. "That, unfortunately, is the downside of goal setting. For example, in the past I did have to say goodbye to someone who had been with a company for years. Working with ambitious goals, didn't work for him at all," René says. "He thought it was all fine the way it was before and was very happy with 'Mañana Mañana'; we mess around, I come in at eight in the morning and am gone again between four and four-thirty. So you should not confuse goals with: it should always be big and lots of steps forward. For many people, simply doing their job very well is a goal in itself. If, as a manager or team leader, you then want to work with enormous goals or targets, you see that there are people who drop out." So it is not necessarily true that goals make everyone happy and that it pulls everyone to a higher level.
According to René, you can't always have a full team of A players either. "Achieving a goal falls and stands with A-players supplemented with the players who don't lead the way but are super important to achieve the final goal. The top players, on the other hand, do go the fastest. The people who embrace goals make great strides quickly, and the people who hobble along and have trouble setting a goal you often see standing still to some degree. That's certainly not good or bad; it's about having the right balance in your team."
The basics
In the past, René has led several start-ups. Each time from the basis of setting goals. He believes that is the way to get employees to come along. "I always compare it to traveling. You have employees who love to pack the backpack and go traveling and see on the spot where they end up and what they are going to do. I don't like that. I'm a person who wants to get from A to B and go to C, D and E in between. I'm into plotting so I know I haven't missed anything. That's how it was for me in running my businesses: Guys, I want to get from A to B, what are the activities that go with that?".
Learning moments
Setting goals is really not easy, even for Rene. "When I was young and just starting to set goals, I tended to set goals that were too big. Goals that turned out to be unrealistic. I learned a tremendous amount from that. It's a bit like people who want to start dieting over Christmas; that's also a pipe dream! Therefore, think carefully about the feasibility of a goal. To go back to the marathon example: for running this marathon, your training schedule, equipment and good preparation is super important. You can't just casually say you're going to run the marathon next week. Making goals achievable has been my most important lesson. You can't run a marathon in a week. That has been a very valuable lesson for me.
In addition, the path to the goal is very important. You can set a goal and predict how it will turn out, but reality is always different. Along the way, there can always be obstacles or things can happen. When setting a goal, you often make assumptions that can turn out differently. Also, maybe one of my base players gets sick or there are other setbacks that you didn't or couldn't foresee. At times like that, you have to be able to react flexibly and make adjustments. Despite this setback, how are you going to achieve your goal?" More roads lead to Rome.