What Does Missing Targets Mean to the Organization?

Your team misses targets. As the leader what do you do?

1. Ignore it?

2. Panic?

3. Punish your team?

4. Move to Costa Rica?

I do not recommend any of these strategies.

Ignoring the missed targets may not seem like a big deal.

However, if your team misses their targets, and the team next door misses their targets and the team on the next floor misses their targets... I am sure you can see where I am going.

The accumulation of all of these missed targets can mean disaster for the organization. There is a hill of rocks on the Camino de Santiago. That might seem unremarkable, but this meters high hill is not natural. It is made from small rocks left here by walkers and cyclists. The tradition has been going on for many years and the accumulated pebbles and stones is now over ten feet tall - and growing! Build ups of small misses can add up to something sizeable.

What do you do? Well, a proactive leader wouldn't find out the targets were not achieved at the last minute. A proactive leader has been working with their team to track progress, ensure nothing is slowing them down, keeping "busy work" away from them. This leader would know what is happening and why throughout the project.

If, however, you haven't been a proactive leader, do not panic, punish your team or move to Costa Rica! Meet with your team to conduct a "look back" meeting - without blaming anyone.

Learn from what went wrong, so that during the next project these issues and problems do not occur again.

I coach leaders to help them be more proactive.

Contact me at Valerie.MacLeod@HainesCentre.com

Photo by Valerie MacLeod