1. Improve relationships with Bender Corporation. 2. Evaluate Trade Shows. 3. Coordinate Territory Manager Travel.

If your boss sent you a memo with the above goals listed, what would you do? A. Say to yourself, "Great! I'll get right on these and show the boss how spectacular I can be." B. Ask yourself, "These are unattainable. How am I ever going to accomplish these?" C. Go see your boss to clarify what she really wants.

Unless I'm so in sync with my boss that we complete one another's sentences, I'm going with C. Why? Because, as written, the goals are useless. Worse, than that, they're dangerous because they're open to interpretation. Goal interpretation leads to miscommunication, misdirected resources, a lack of "goal accomplishment", and lots and lots of frustration.

What does "Improve relationships" mean to you? If you're the account representative for Bender Corporation, it may mean something completely different than it does to the VP of Sales and Marketing. Therefore, the VP of Sales and Marketing, if that's the person who has written this goal, has to be very clear in what will constitute an improvement in the relationship. Will this goal be achieved if you call Bender five times a day instead of two? Will it be achieved if you increase sales? Will it be achieved if you reduce the number of times they call you and complain? What needs to happen to allow you to mark this goal "COMPLETED"? I ask my clients, "What are the deliverables?" What needs to be delivered, completed, developed, demolished, moved, installed, increased or decreased to allow us to cross these goals off the list? Once that's defined, the goal is clear.

"By 3/31/05, meet as needed with Bender Corporation contacts to understand and clear their complaint log on service/warranty work."

Ah, now we've got clarity. Now we've got a deliverable – Clear the complaint log.

If the goals you're developing with and for your staff aren't clear and don't define a deliverable, you're making it hard for your team to "deliver" success.

Copyright 2004 - Liz Weber of Weber Business Services, LLC.
Liz speaks, consults, and trains on Leadership Development, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change. Additional articles can be found at http://www.wbsllc.com/leadership.shtml
Liz can be reached at liz@wbsllc.com or (717)597-8890

Permission to reprint this article is granted as long as you use the complete attribution above - including live website link and e-mail address - and you send me an email at liz@wbsllc.com to let me know where the article will be published.