Linking Individual Goals to Organisation Goals
The economy and the changing nature of work itself have given the importance of goal-setting new life.
Goals can help an organization and its employees focus on the most important and pressing priorities.
The challenge is to ensure each employee is aware of and hilly appreciates what must be done each day, and at specific intervals, for the organization to meet its goals.
Developing a goal management process can focus on employees and resources on producing better outcomes.
In order to secure the smooth functioning of the organization and to achieve both sets of goals, it is necessary to integrate and coordinate them.
This can be done by putting them in a relationship so that conflict between them is reduced to a minimum. The disagreement between these two sets of goals is not totally undesirable.
It is found that an individual develops more by facing problems and challenges. He becomes more cautious and creative in an adverse situations.
Ultimately, a reasonable amount of difference, if handled constructively, may prove advantageous for both the individual and the organization.
This can be done by the following process;
1. Fusion Process
The fusion process involves an interaction of individuals and informal groups formed by them and the formal organization.
The fusion process aims at achieving a balance or equilibrium between individual goals and organizational goals. Before joining an organization, an individual is guided by his own value system and norms.
On joining, his value system is diluted and merged into group norms and value systems. It ultimately gets refined in the light of organizational culture and environment.
Subsequently, he realizes that it is in his interest to maintain order and discipline and reach a standard of performance.
On the one hand, it results in the achievement of organizational goals, and on the other, it provides job satisfaction, reasonable reward, self-motivation, and career development of an individual in the organization.
In the interaction of the individual with the organization, two processes operate simultaneously. These processes are the process of ‘Socialising’ and the process of ‘Personalising.’
Through these processes, an individual comes to know about organizational culture, what is acceptable or not acceptable in the organization, how to communicate his feelings, and how to interact with others.
Similarly, through the process of personalizing, an individual actualizes and identifies himself with informal groups and the organization.
The process of socialization aims at achieving organizational goals, and the process of personalizing aims at achieving individual goals.
The organization attempts to secure scores of fusion processes at the level at which it is more beneficial both for the organization and the individual.
2. Inducement and Contribution Process
This process was developed by March and Simon. It aims at integrating individual goals with organizational goals.
According to this process, an individual contributes towards the accomplishment of organizational goals. He is induced to make that contribution to the organization in the form of many satisfaction-giving factors.
The simple logic behind this process is that one has to contribute the maximum after being induced the maximum. In other words, one contributes and gets a share in the form of inducement.
To seek a higher contribution of employees, the organization has to balance these two at a higher level. It is because a higher level of inducement may cause a higher level of motivation, which would result in a higher contribution.
Similarly, a higher contribution would further cause a higher inducement. If this cycle is maintained in this way, an individual gets merged into the organization and identifies himself only as an inseparable part of the organization.
Linking Team Goals to Organisation Goals
Linking team goals to organizational goals is just one more way we are fostering better alignment. And with all the pressures placed on managers today, alignment becomes more important than ever.
A team I should not even exist unless it represents the best way to help the organization achieve its goals. That means that team goals should be aligned with organizational goals.
It means that individual team members should have goals that are aligned through the team with those higher organizational goals.
Employees who clearly understand their individual goals — and how they relate to those of the company — naturally become more engaged with their work.
Once employees see how they can make a direct contribution to the company’s success, they begin to focus on finding ways to work smarter and more efficiently.
This boost in employee productivity will naturally lead to increased operating margins and profitability for the company. To achieve these results, the company must put a performance management process in place that:
- Increases employee engagement with “SMART” goals
- Provides visibility up, down, and across reporting levels
- Creates shared accountability between employees by “cascading” goals from one employee to another when relevant and
- Communicates expectations clearly during every phase of goal completion
Tighter goal alignment and goal visibility allow for quicker execution of company strategy by enabling the management team to allocate labor resources across various projects more effectively.
By exposing redundant business initiatives, also increases overall efficiency by ensuring employees are not duplicating the efforts of others.
Plus, goal alignment strengthens the leadership at the company by allowing managers to:
- Understand more clearly all responsibilities associated with specific goals
- Eliminate redundancies across job titles
- Focus their staff on your company’s most pertinent goals