Interpersonal Skills: 11 Good Ways To Set Goals With The TEAM

Nowadays, it’s critical that leaders possess strong interpersonal skills, and one key aspect of being a leader is having polished the ability to set goals with the team.

If you are curious about the eleven ways to set goals for your team, please check them below:

People management
Goal-oriented
Track progress
Energy and initiative to solve problems;
Availability to listen and to receive feedback (peer and leader);
Interest, curiosity, and creativity;
Have an open and receptive attitude to innovations;
Use the SMART system to accomplish deadlines.
Build Morale
Be empathic
Cordiality

11 Good Ways to Set Goals with the TEAM

As a leader there a few things you have to get right in order to successfully manage to allocate tasks, nurture a culture of accountability and produce great results. Let us go through them…

People Management

While the team has common goals to achieve the company’s objectives, each team member should be responsible for a specific activity.

It is teamwork; however, it is always good to distribute tasks to decentralize the work, which can often delay the delivery of it and decrease the quality.

Goal-oriented

Set goals as a way to achieve targets and milestones that may at first seem impossible, however, with planning and organization it can be realized.

Achieving goals depends on the broad involvement of the entire team. To further organize the process, it is crucial to define precisely what should be done per sector individually while still clarifying the complete scenario and how each activity impacts the whole.

Seek to define goals compatible with the profile of each team and sector;
There must be easier targets to achieve while on the path to more challenging achievement, subdivided into short, medium, and long-term goals.

The goal is the result, but the process toward the goal is where the value of teamwork lies. Monitoring the progress and gradual achievements in each phase of cooperation brings us motivation and courage – especially when the final goal is months away.

Achieving minor goals activates the reward center in the brain and releases dopamine. When this becomes a shared experience through following the process, the entire team benefits from feeling good about the advancement.

Track progress

Find a method that allows verification of accomplishing the tasks and goals that each team member has to achieve. It can be creating a specific frame or place where the individual progress of each is visible.

We can include labels like:

Achieved! Add this label to initiatives you finish during the quarter.

Planning: This indicates that the project is being planned.

Next: This communicates that the project has not yet started.

In Progress: This tag can inform our team that you are working on the goal!

Doing well: Our team is up to date with the progress of the goal.

At risk: If we don’t think we can reach the goal, add this tag to show transparency and ask for help!

Not achieved (for now): All right to fail at a goal once in a while. Registering this will help your team come back to the subject later and try again.

Energy and initiative to solve problems;

Workplace conflict is virtually inevitable and can occur in various ways: between two employees, between entire teams, or between supervisors and the team members they manage.

Waiting for conflict to resolve itself is not the most effective way to deal with it. The friction tends to increase if it is not appropriately handled.

Once conflict exists, you should not run away from it. Avoiding it or pretending that nothing happened will not solve anything; on the contrary, it will only cause the tension to increase;
The ideal is to embrace and face conflicting and uncomfortable issues as soon as possible;
Do not look for a person to blame but for a root cause;
Every conflict can be seen as a learning opportunity; where there is disagreement, there is an inherent potential for growth and development.

Availability to listen and to receive feedback (peer and leader);

Knowing how to listen to means being attentive to what is being said, understanding how the person behaves when positioning their arguments, and understanding their reasons.

Dialogue is one of the most valuable tools to prevent and resolve conflicts in an organization. Thus, try to create spaces and moments that stimulate the conversation, exchanging ideas, perspectives, and periodic feedback. This way, you can build aligned and cohesive teams.

Our employee needs to feel at ease to express their point of view, say what bothers them and raise problems for their managers and colleagues.

Interest, curiosity, and creativity;

If we want employees to think outside the box, we need to motivate them with rewards. Also, suggestions should be taken seriously so that employees are willing to create more creative ways of improving the workplace.

Otherwise, everyone will think it’s a waste of time trying to get something creative out of their heads with suggestions that won’t be implemented anyway. To get things started, we can set goals for your employees to think about making work processes more efficient.

Perhaps each employee can be tasked with providing a suggestion by the end of each week, and then we will evaluate which idea is best.

Have an open and receptive attitude to innovations

Creating an organizational environment favorable to the culture of innovation is still a great challenge, as it involves attitudes and changes within the company and depends on collaboration between internal and external professionals.

But when the organization is willing to provide autonomy, allow everyone to explore their ideas, and focus on their teams’ creativity, the results do not take long to appear.

To have an open and receptive attitude to innovations at work, we may consider:

Building a democrat environment in which everyone could give ideas about improvements they would make;
If we have a company that has very conservative values, we may consider changing the philosophy.

Use the SMART system to accomplish deadlines.

Before setting any goals, ensure that your team understands the SMART criteria for setting goals:

Specific: We need to know our goal, so we know how much effort they take.

Measurable: A measurable goal is to track the progress by seeing if we could or not accomplish the goals; it is also easier to divide into smaller, more manageable milestones that individuals and your team can monitor.

Attainable: Our team goals should be realistic to achieve within the appropriate time.

Relevant: Relevant team goals are those that guarantee that we are resolving the most pressing issues and that your team has the resources and skills to accomplish the goal.

Time-related: To be productive and efficient with our time and resources, team goals should have clear deadlines.

Build Morale

Having a definition of what constitutes acceptable behavior is already an essential step towards avoiding conflict. In other words, employees need to know clearly what is expected of them.

Be Empathic

Empathy is the ability to put oneself in the other’s shoes to understand one’s inner motivations, one’s point of view.

When two or more employees come to you with a problem, try to listen to them carefully, understand their side and how the situation affects them. Thus, it is easier to know what measures should be taken in the case of conflict.

Being an empath also allows them to be socially aware and helps us better integrate with the people we live with.

Cordiality

In addition to improving the climate in the environment, courtesy is reflected in teams’ performance, remembering a colleague’s birthday or saying good morning when he arrives at the company.

In practicing kindness, however, this professional shows much more than the ability to be delicate with the other and see who is behind the functions. Thus, in addition to improving the work climate, courtesy is reflected in the team’s performance.

A friendly relationship between people can directly impact productivity and professional success.

Conclusion

Goals in teamwork should motivate and concentrate the team’s efforts so that distractions are minimal and contribute to the maximum. Work doesn’t have to feel like just a task we need to accomplish if we connect and build relationships with people surrounding us.

References and Further Reading

JUPILLE, Rémy. Business Secrets Podcast.

How to set goals for your team. Impraise

MORGAINE, Briana. Ways to Set Team Goals (That Actually Work).Bplans

How to Set Goals as a Team: Steps and Examples | Indeed.com. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-set-team-goals

How to Set and Achieve your Business Goals in 2020 – My …. https://mytargethub.com/business-goals-to-set-this-year/