The conscience development of goals is not something that we
may do frequently, but there is obviously a lot of research indicating the
importance of doing so. The setting of goals alone is not enough, though. They
have to challenge us and be accompanied by feedback in order to be most
effective. When setting goals, actions to reach the goal should be considered
as well. If we set goals for ourselves that are too hard, we will certainly
give up. The same goes for making broad statements and not having actions in
mind (Wooten & Burroughs, 1991). I think this is why many people’s New
Year’s resolutions fail. It is common to say things like, “I am going to work
out more” and “I am going to lose weight”. However, both of these goals are
extremely difficult for people to achieve and they require self-discipline
which many of us lack, too. A better way to handle these situations is to
partner losing weight with a specific action like joining Weight Watchers. The
addition of Weight Watcher then makes this goal more likely to be achieved
because now you have added the elements of feedback and support. Encouragement
goes a long way toward helping people achieve their personal and professional
goals.
Professionally, I have begun to learn the importance of
goals more than ever. When I was teaching high school, my goals were related to
what I wanted my students to do more so than what I wanted for myself. I had
very few personal goals but one of those professional goals was to earn
National Board Certification in foreign language. I had heard it was the
equivalent of earning a master’s. It was very challenging for me. There were
several components to the process and I did not earn enough points to pass the
first time. They provide the opportunity to retake only the portions that you need
to and I believe that is the reason I tried again. If I had to endure the
entire process, it would have proven to be too much for me and I would have
abandoned the idea (Brown, 2011). What I did not like about earning this
certification was that there is no feedback process. Your submissions are sent
off for grading and you receive the results…without comments added. It is very
difficult to alter your goals or processes when you do not understand where you
went wrong. This translates into the job I have now, too. After each training
session that I do, I push a survey to my “students”. Two of the sections ask
for feedback about the presenters and about the content of the session. I rely
heavily on this feedback to make adjustments to my trainings and my style. If I
am not meeting the needs of my customers, I have to know. I think this
anonymous method of collecting feedback really provides for honest answers.
As for providing feedback, this comes naturally to me now
from my teacher days, I think. My philosophy there is that if someone is doing
something ineffectively and nobody tells them about it, they cannot improve. My
colleague is a perfect example. She has proven to be a great EagleVision
trainer; however, she only wants to train on EagleVision and has (jokingly)
made her feelings known. The university has many academic technologies though,
and we need to be proficient in all of them and be able to train faculty on
their use. So, even though I am not her supervisor, I have provided this feedback
to her. I have offered to mentor her and I have even pushed her out of her
comfort zone by assigning the Blackboard upgrade training to her. She spent
hours familiarizing herself with the new features and assembling the training.
Once she had a goal, she chose specific actions to take to accomplish it (like
research and practice), delivered the training, received feedback from the
survey and her coworkers, and felt a great sense of pride that she had
accomplished her goal. When not faced with a specific goal, her performance
level was low and she did not engage with the technology. Setting the goal with
her definitely provided her with an avenue to be successful.
I find that I perform better when I have specific goals as
well. In my current position, I have several projects (which equate to goals)
in the works right now. It helps me to understand exactly what the end result
will be so that I can outline activities to reach the goal. In my case,
targeted feedback is not necessary. I do well with generic feedback, too. My
supervisor or a faculty member telling me that I did a good job or really
helped them is a motivating factor for me. As a leader, knowing that goal-setting
and relevant feedback is important to motivation, I will make an effort to
include this process when working with my employees. And when I decide to put
NBCT next to my name, it reminds me to set challenging goals for myself, too!
References:
Brown , D. (2011). An experential approach to
organizational development. (8th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Wooten, W., & Burroughs, W. A. (1991). Setting
measurable goals for better performance. Supervisory Management, 36(12),
3. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/214224727?accountid=27203
No comments:
Post a Comment