too general to provide meaningful yearly goals for employees.
Also, they do not take into account the individual strengths and
weaknesses of any particular employee, since they don’t
describe people, but positions. Job descriptions may be useful as
background material for setting goals, but keep in mind that it’s
quite possible, and even desirable, for different people in the
same position, with the same job description, to have somewhat
different goals.
Finally, individual performance goals develop from corpo-
rate goals through discussion and dialogue between the manag-
er and each employee. The goals are set and negotiated individ-
ually and collaboratively. They are not imposed, dictated, or
“given” to the employee. Why? Here are the main reasons:
- Most employees—those who have been in their positions
for a while—know how they can best contribute. They
know their jobs and how well they need to do them.
Employees are in the best positions to set goals for them-
selves. - Since we want employees to buy into the goals and treat
them as most important, they need to participate in the
specification of the goals that apply to them. When people
are active participants in setting goals, they tend to work
harder to achieve them, since they have a feeling of owner-
ship. - Performance goals, by themselves, are important, but so are
the discussions that generate them. As you will see later,
the discussion between manager and employee serves
many purposes, the least of which involves writing down
goals. The discussion helps employees understand where
they fit in the organization and provides meaning and con-
9Using This Book to Write Better Performance Goals