How often do organizations develop and share annual goals at the start of a new year, then barely talk with work teams about them until 12 months later when posting results. Is it any wonder teams often miss the target when we don’t consistently track goal performance?
Successful leaders help teams stay focused on achieving critical operational, financial, and quality goals every day. Monitoring, sharing, and discussing progress throughout the year are all essential practices to make that happen. That’s why the “T” in our Smarter S.M.A.R.T. goals model stands for tracked.
Following are five key ideas for effectively tracking goals performance in ways that engage staff and improve results.
Go beyond simply posting results
To be meaningful and influence team priorities, updated reports from quality, patient satisfaction surveys, and other operations metrics have to be more than just another piece of paper posted on a staff bulletin board. Great leaders encourage team dialogue about results during every department meeting, allowing sufficient time to really discuss the implications of the results.
Celebrate success
Too often we hear frontline staff complain that, “they only notice when something goes wrong.” Taking time to acknowledge and celebrate success along the way reinforces best practices and superior performance. Plus, it just feels good!
Course-correct for shortfalls
When results fall short of expectations, high-performing teams seek to understand why. Too often, teams simply say, “we must do better” without understanding the root causes of the performance gap. Underlying that flawed thinking is the assumption that the team is doing the right things, but they are not doing them well enough. Many times, the real problem may be that the practices implemented to achieve the goal are not the appropriate or best ones. Only when a team understands that a change in course is necessary will results improve.
A picture is worth a thousand numbers
Straightforward graphs or charts that quickly illustrate the trend in performance are far more powerful than lots of numbers and words. Additional details behind the graphs can be used to better understand why performance is trending in a certain direction.
Tell stories to make the results real
Numbers are important, but the impact those numbers have on patients’ lives is what really matters. For example, cardiac and ER teams track “door to balloon time” to improve performance. But how often do they have the chance to hear about how grateful a wife is for efforts that saved her husband’s life. Take time during staff meetings and huddles to highlight those stories of gratitude expressed by patients, family members, and colleagues.
Making goal achieved an integral part of a team’s day-to-day work is essential to achieve great outcomes. Only when we both effectively develop and then track performance in meaningful ways will goal-setting become an effective strategy for influencing short- and long-term results.