Assume you are a sales director who is responsible for the southeastern sales te
ID: 438247 • Letter: A
Question
Assume you are a sales director who is responsible for the southeastern sales team for a large telecommunications company. You are currently in the process of preparing the sales goals for the coming year for your sales managers and their direct reports.1. What are the criteria for effective goals?
2. What does it mean to align your department goals with the overall organization? Give an example of an organizational goal and two sales team goals that support it.
What unexpected industry conditions might occur during your sales year? What are some contingency plans you could put in place in case these conditions occur
Explanation / Answer
Your goals provide direction and motivation, and serve as tools for measuring your results. For maximum effectiveness and accomplishment, make sure your goals align with our WHYSMART methodology. W=Written Put your goals in writing to ensure that they are clear and specific. Writing down your goals forces you to clarify your thinking. If you are not able to clarify your goals, you need to challenge the original critical goal category or goal statement to be sure that you are focusing on what you really want to accomplish. Written goals promote accurate and sustained action. It is also easier to communicate your goals to the rest of the team, to review, discuss and prioritize these goals when there are others competing for your attention. H=Harmonious Your goals must harmonize with your vision and purpose, as well as with other goals. All elements of your plan must be complementary and mutually reinforcing. Unaligned goals will pull you in multiple directions and hamper your success. Y=Yours You will be most motivated to achieve goals that reflect your important desires and values. Be aware of what motivates you and tailor your goals to fit your personality. S=Specific Vague goals create confusion. In order to have clear direction and strong motivation, state your goals positively and specifically to help create a mental picture of what you want to accomplish. M=Measurable Measurable goals provide benchmarks for determining progress and evaluating results. Goals that are not measurable lack direction, value for motivation, and a reason to celebrate. A=Attainable Attainable is defined as being reached by efforts of the mind and body. Attainable goals should be beyond our reach and cause us to stretch. Goals should provide a challenge, so the rewards remain worth the effort. R=Realistically high and Results oriented Challenging goals stimulate creativity and commitment. Be clear about the end result your goal is designed to accomplish and focus on results. T=Time bound Dates for accomplishment are critical for planning, decision making, operational coordination and evaluation. Deadlines create a powerful and necessary sense of urgency which fosters achievement. Organizational performance alignment is the linking of organizational goals and objectives with performance. This is perhaps the greatest challenge to implementing a world class performance management solutions. Most companies have problems aligning and relating strategy and plans with operations, enterprise application architecture and information systems with business processes, the organization with business operations, customer needs with product and service development, outsourced services with internal operations, human resources with business needs, tangible assets with intangible assets, management policies and decisions with business change, information reported with the actual business, and so on. This lens focuses on aligning performance to your organization's finances, people, processes, and systems.