How to – Insure Goal Success When a spacecraft gets off of its trajectory (it’s route through space), it must be put back on the right path. The location of the spacecraft is determined and its course vector (the speed and direction of its flight) is calculated. This is compared with the path it should be on. A new vector is computed that will put it back on course. The ship's attitude thrusters aim the ship and the main thruster pushes it along the path.

The summer is a great time to make course corrections for those goals that were set at the beginning of the year. Taking the time now to review and possible amend goals set in January, determine priorities, review possible changes, additions or deletions and create realistic milestones can go a long way to lessening the flurry of activity that often comes in the fall. It also can help you sidestep the panic and last minute crunch people experience in December.

SIMPLE STEPS

• Block out a few hours one day this week. While it actually may not take you a few hours to get this done, it’s good to have the block of time if it’s needed. This is especially true if you will be talking with others about goals and objectives set. People find that true discussion takes longer than they estimate. Better to have enough time to delve into matter well. If you don’t need the time, everyone will get the ‘gift’ of unplanned time that day (which people can always use!).

• Have the goals and objectives that were set at hand.

• Eliminate those objectives that have already been accomplished.

• Eliminate the goals and no longer makes sense or apply for the rest of 2007.

• Add any new goals, projects, assignments or initiatives that have materialized since the lost of objectives was written.

• Prioritize. This can be done in terms of dates due, importance, lead time needed, impact on the organization, or degree of difficulty.

• Create realistic milestones so that you start with plenty of time to successfully achieve the result, deal with potential delay’s and give people plenty of time to do their part.

• Look ahead to next year. Are there any goals that you might be able to start during the last quarter of 2007? If so, write them down as possible goals to add during the 4th quarter should you have the time. This will give you a head start on next year’s goals.

While no one has a crystal ball to predict exactly what the last six months of the year will bring, take time now to plan how your time will best be spent.

Labels: goals, planning, success

  1:08 PM •  0 Comments •

How to – Pinpoint Your Training Needs When planning for developmental and skill training programs, there are some critical steps necessary for making sure that training is a solid developmental resource. They include:

Identifying competency or success-factor information

These are the knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and characteristics that represent the fundamental skill or behavioral components of a job. In short, they are the things people must know and be able to do in order to perform a set of job requirements. Even if you think you know all there is to know, start with a blank piece of paper, and create a thorough inventory of everything it takes to do the job well.

Build profiles

If one objective of the developmental effort is to establish specific job requirement information, it makes sense to construct job profiles using the previously created success factors. Making useful job profiles start with the establishment of two important criteria:

• the critically (importance) of each success factor
• the proficiency level (degree of mastery required) for each factor.
Remember that you are creating a profile of the job, not the person doing the job. People often go to their strengths, and positions take on the focus of the person who does them, rather than what the position may require.

Assess employees

You can develop reasonably accurate pictures of employee strengths and weaknesses by building on the competency and success-factor models. A good rule of thumb is to gather information from the employee, the employees' immediate supervisor, and two of the employee's peers (have the employee choose one and the supervisor choose one.)

Identify gaps

After you create an employee profile, you can compare it to the previously established job profile in order to identify the most logical and critical gaps in development. Compare the required levels of competency to the actual levels. The difference between the two is the gap. Once you've made this kind of comparison, you could create a summary of all employees relative to their job requirements. That then can be used to identify group developmental needs, to target and focus training needs and dollars, to select employees for promotions an to determine the distance the group needs to move in order to be brought up to acceptable levels of performance.

Identify options

Development options can be linked to three basic sets of activities:
1. Formal, in-house programs, designed to provide training and developmental options;
2. External programs; workshops, seminars and formal classes that address identified competencies
3. Internal, on-the-job experiences that are identified as sources of growth and development

Follow Through

This sounds so simple, but many organizations fail to follow through. The message sent to employees is that the process stops with the training assessment. Some type of mechanism should be put in place to commend and reinforce desired behavior. People need to see and hear tangible rewards for their efforts, even if it simply interest in their development on the part of their manager. People tend to do what gets noticed.

Whatever method you use to determine your training needs for the coming year, keep your objectives in mind - What would you like to see happen as a result of your assessment? What would you like to see someone do more of? What would you like them to do less of?

Once you answer that question, then ask - What are you willing to do to ensure the results you want? How much time, money and human energy are you, and your organization willing to invest in developing your talent?

Labels: profiles, success, Training

  1:04 PM •  0 Comments •