Managers Kit

Goal Engagement & Great Execution

Leadership opportunity

70 %

of employees say
theyre disengaged
from their jobs

Less than 20 %
People with clear, written goals
accomplish far more in a shorter period
Know their goals of time than people without them
could ever imagine.
Brian Tracy
1. Source: Metrus Group survey
2. Source: Gallup survey
Engage your team in great execution
This kit provides a management model for goal engagement and great execution.

Set Goals Delegate & Motivate Track Status & Report Pivot
& Priorities Share Work People Action Items Results Quickly

To make the most of the kit:

1. First, view this kit in full-screen mode to get the whole picture.
2. Use the placeholders to deepen your thinking on goals, metrics, motivation and work plans.
3. Extract pages and tailor them to communicate your model to your team at a staff meeting.
4. Expect it to take 4 weeks for new habits to form as you work the model.
If you dont have or havent communicated clear goals, theres no time like the present to start!
 Set and Predicting rain doesnt count, building
arks does.
communicate goals Warren Buffett

Identify 2-3 strategic goals for the quarter. Use

aspirational language to help the team get passionate
about achievement.
Your Goals:

Ensure each team member understands the purpose 1.

of their work and the results youre trying to achieve.
(All the work your team does should align to achieving
these goals.) 2.

Sample Goals:
3.
Deliver better content to our users to
increase ad sales opportunities
4.
Delight customers
5.
 Define metrics You can spend your life running up and
down the field and never score.
for success Bill Copeland

Define a metric that will be used to assess success and Your Key Metrics:
when it should be achieved. Communicate the metrics
to the team so they understand how success will be
1.
measured and the value of the work. Keep the metrics
visible to reduce diversions by less valuable work.
2.
Sample Metrics:
Increase page views to enable higher ad sales
3.
40% Increase in Page Views by Year End

4.
Delight customers
100 Referrals by March 30
5.
 Plan and Plan with audacity, execute with rigor.
delegate work Christian Bovee

Organize for execution and accountability. Define

the streams of work required and team members Your workstreams:
involved. Workstreams are a way to group and
monitor related effort (or the recurring functional 1.
activities of your teams).

2.
Sample Workstreams
Content Development 3.
Page & Site Design
Customer Engagement 4.

User Experience Design

5.
 Distribute and The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.
Nolan Bushnell
do the work
Define and distribute the primary action items in weekly
work plans with due dates and owners. Minimize burden Your Primary Action Items:
and maximize goal achievement by assigning significant Identify the top 5-10 deliverables needed in the
actions with precise outcomes and let the team flesh out next two weeks to achieve your goals
the details.
1.
Use weekly staff meetings to communicate the weeks
plans and hold people accountable for prior week
outcomes. 2.

Sample Action Items

Refresh the blog page layout with new style 3.
guide by Friday (Mary)
Publish 2 third-party articles by Thursday 4.
(Satya)
Conduct customer survey by February 20 5.
(Brian)
 Motivate people The road to success is always
under construction.
Lily Tomlin
Help your team relate their work to the goals and
recognize progress. Foster purpose and passion week
after week by staying on the plan yourself. Engaging your staff:
Provide support and feedback as work progresses be
generous with attaboys. Capture what motivates each staff member

Use 1on1s to reiterate and reinvigorate

goals, check progress and remove Identify what engagement change youll
obstacles. incorporate to improve execution velocity:

Ask what motivates people; incorporate

it in engagement.
 Track status of key Dont expect what you dont inspect.
deliverables Clement Stone

Ask for weekly status on results and for each primary action
and deliverable; use red/green light indicators to better Facts to have before
predict and prevent execution issues.
staff meetings:
Use your staff meetings to remove roadblocks and plan next 1.
weeks work rather than recounting last weeks status.

2.
Sample Status
Refresh the blog page layout with new style guide
3.
by Friday DONE (Mary)
Publish 2 third-party articles by Thursday
DOING late because Acme doesnt have pub 4.
approval (Satya)
Redesign landing page by Tuesday NEXT, HI 5.
PRIORITY (Maurice)
 Measure results What's measured improves.
Peter Drucker
Measure results against the goal and metrics youve
defined. Determine who should provide the data
points on the key metric for each goal; ask them to
provide it in their report. Results you report:
When you get great results, give great feedback; dont What will you communicate upline as progress
hesitate to provide fact-based, unemotional feedback against the organizations goals?
where improvements are needed.
What level deliverable?

What type of red flags?

What metrics?
 Pivot quickly
Respond to changing competitive, market,
resource and organization conditions by
redirecting efforts, changing goals, and re-
planning work.
When overall goals change, pull the team
together to communicate which facts and
circumstances changed, the root cause, and
changes in plan of action.
Change is inevitable, progress is not.
Max McKeown
Develop a checklist for socializing
and executing the pivot:
What facts and decisions are needed upline to
get support?
Have you re-set the team and provided logic
for the shift so they move seamlessly forward?
What are the new goals and metrics and have
you re-set the work plans?
 The ask from the team

GOALS ACTIONS STATUS RESULTS

Make sure you know Track your primary Update action item Do weekly reports
the goals so youre action items and status as it changes directly from your list.
contributing to and deliverables; update and indicate red flags; Include action items
enjoy success! your deliverable list see and comment on youve done, are doing
after our staff meetings peer status. and plan to do next.
Provide comments on
red flag and late items.
How to simplify sharing and reporting with Workboard
 Goals
Make goals more visible
with Workboard.
Create and cascade goals
that inspire.

Define and chart metrics

for success.

Update dashboards on
progress to goal.

Link goals to the teams

work to build purpose and
identify risks.
 Workstreams
Track your Workstreams
in Workboard.

Set an objective for a

Workstream to keep your
team aligned.

Create action items to

organize the day-to-day
work.

Use the dashboard for an

at-a-glance status report.
 Define actions and deliverables

Start a team meeting

Put action items from
staff meetings into
Workboard so theyre
tracked until theyre
done. organize your
agenda with topics,
action items, goals and
capture actionable
takeaways.
 Use comments for public praise

Engage with your team

as work progresses.

Add comments on action items;

your team will appreciate your
involvement and feedback.
The action item owner gets an
email with comments and
everyone in the workstream
will see where youre giving
kudos for job well done.
 Get progress transparency
See progress on all
workstreams and things that
need your attention from your
phone.

Browse each workstream and see

the status of everything, anywhere.
Add comments and add action items
on the go.
Update status from
anywhere.
Tick things off your list easily and
make it easy for the team. When
action item status changes or red flags
arise, everyone has transparency.
 Report weekly status with ease

Close the Agreed-to-

Achieved loop.

Get weekly reports on the same

action items your team agreed to
deliver at the last staff meeting.

Waste no time compiling the full

picture Workboard rolls up your
teams reports into a summary
that shows new red flags and late
deliverables, highlighting where
your attention is needed.
 Get results, give timely feedback

Measure results against goals

and refocus as needed.
Use reports to consistently get
data against your metric and
status of key deliverables.

Once youve read your teams

report, leave a badge to let
them know how they did.
 Change priorities
Reprioritize deliverables to pivot
quickly.
Identify whats in progress or on the horizon that
should be accelerated or deferred. Change
priorities to alert the team to whats now more
important.

Add or remove team objectives.

Change workstreams as often as needed to reflect new
or evolving goals. Rename them or just change the
objective to alert the team that the target has changed.
 How Workboard supports the team

GOALS ACTIONS STATUS RESULTS

Workboard helps you With Workboard, your Your team can use Workboard makes it
clearly communicate team can track their Workboard to easy for the team to do
team goals to keep key action items and communicate status weekly reports on
your team on track! deliverables all in one on deliverables and deliverables, allowing
them to spend more
place accessible potential completion time on achieving
from iPhone, iPad or roadblocks to avoid results and less time
web. surprises. reporting on them!
Use Workboard to share and achieve your goals.