How Can Your Team Achieve More?

Every leader wants their team to be more productive, but simply demanding higher output and greater focus won’t get you very far. To get a handle on how your team should spend their time in order to achieve more, you must outline specific goals. Goals allow you to decide what “productivity” really looks like and where team members should be spending their time to get more done.

Challenging Long-Term Goals, Greater Achievement

When setting goals for your team, first set long-term goals. The bigger, the better. Setting challenging goals forces people to push themselves beyond what they perceive to be their current limitations. If you set the bar too low, it doesn’t require anyone to try new approaches, put in extra effort, learn new skills or help each other out. Challenging goals demand effort and ultimately, when a challenging goal is achieved, the satisfaction level is much higher.

Short-Term Goals Set the Tone and Pace

Short-term goals are the path your team will take to achieve their greater, more challenging goal.  People will feel a sense of momentum as they check off each short-term goal and watch the needle move on their long-term goal. Break up each large goal into a series of short-term goals complete with timelines to get your team moving in the right direction.

Specific Goals Allow for Performance Regulation

When setting your short-term goals, be as specific as possible.  Say you are a sales manager and you’ve set an audacious sales goal for the year. How is that goal achieved? Through a series of behaviors. Ultimately, the more cold calls the team makes, the more deals they will close. In this example, you could set weekly or monthly goals for a specific number of cold calls.  Now, you can closely monitor the team’s cold calling efforts and identify people who might need coaching in this specific area. Over time, the team will develop behaviors that will get them to their long-term goal.

Specific goals tell your team members what you want their output to be and lays the framework for how to do it.  They also reduce procrastination and wasted time, since team members know exactly what is expected of them, and they can just get to work each day rather than spinning their wheels deciding what to do next.

Provide Feedback

Goal setting is only effective when your team gets regular feedback. If they think you aren’t watching, many will ignore their goals and keep working the same way they always have. Feedback also allows employees to make the necessary performance adjustments required to reach their larger goal.

Do You Need High-Performing Sales Talent?

If you are looking for productive, high-achieving sales talent for your ag business, contact the agricultural industry staffing experts at Morris Bixby Group. Our proven strategies for success can help you achieve your recruiting and retention goals quickly and efficiently.

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