There is no getting around the importance of SMART goal setting to reach your business goals. But, once you have set your SMART goals, you need to have buy-in on all levels in order to reach the goals. You can spend hours in meetings developing strategic plans and goal setting, but if your resources, including your team, are not behind the goals, you will lack the progress you long to see. Here are a few reasons buy-in is so important in the goal-setting process.
Improves efficiency
When you have buy-in on all levels you will use your resources more efficiently. All resources, including the people will be working together to bring the goal to fruition. Your resources can be pooled or divided as necessary to help the team complete the tasks they are working on. When the whole team is working in the same direction the resources will stretch further. When the team is going in different directions the resources will be divided, making them less efficient.
Improves the culture
Buy-in changes the culture of the workplace. Instead of supervisor/employee or split departments, there becomes more of a team feel. Everyone is working together to reach the same overall company goal. There is a team mentality. Coworkers look to assist others because when one person wins the whole team wins.
SMART goal setting helps all departments to see how their jobs impact the overall company goals. People become more productive because they know what they are working towards and how to track their progress. Nick Saban, head football coach at the University of Alabama once said, “People who are role models for the principles and values of the organization, who buy in and understand the vision of what the organization is trying to accomplish, and have the personality to inspire other people to the vision. You know, that’s what team chemistry and leadership is all about.” That’s what you want to accomplish within your organization.
Improves the chance of success
It doesn’t matter how SMART your goals are if there is no buy-in. You need management, all staff, and all other resources to be supporting and working towards reaching the goals. When you accomplish this your chances of success are going to increase drastically because you have a team working towards the goal instead of just yourself.
During competitions, they have discovered that Belgium draft horses can pull around 8,000 lbs on their own. But, if you pair two horses together that have not trained together they can pull between 20,000 and 24,000 lbs. That’s amazing, right? Two horses can pull around three times more than a single horse. But, it doesn’t stop there. If you train the horses together and they are working together they can pull over 30,000 lbs together. The same is true when you achieve 100% buy-in from your company.
Improves ability to assess effectiveness
If you do not have buy-in of your resources you have no way of truly assessing if those resources are working or not. In order to determine the successfulness of your plan, you need all resources working together towards the goal. When this happens you can analyze and track progress. Then, you can determine if you need additional resources. When you don’t have buy-in you might end up obtaining additional resources that you wouldn’t need if you had buy-in during on your SMART goal setting.
Complete buy-in is a game changer for businesses of any size. If you are interested in learning how to create more buy-in with your employees contact SPEARity, a local Milwaukee leadership coaching firm that specializes in business coaching, executive coaching, and leadership development training
