Goals and Goal Alignment

The most important part of implementing your company strategy (vision, mission, values and objectives) is to set goals. Goals should be formulated and agreed upon at all levels and aligned top-down and bottom-up. The diagram below shows the downward and upward cascading process:

To get buy-in and cooperation across the company, the goal-setting process must be done in a participative fashion. At each level of goal-setting, key stakeholders should be identified and invited to participate in the goal-setting process.

Strategic planning includes a process of setting goals for the organisation as a whole, which can be long-term (3-5 year) goals but could also include short-term goals.

Operational planning goal setting is breaking down these strategic goals into shorter-term action-orientated goals to be achieved in this operational cycle (1 year at most).

Cascading goals down into business and support unit goals, means the organisational level goals (the first Tier) are translated into the business unit or support unit goals (the second Tier) and then later to team and individual goals (the third Tier). Cascading translates high-level strategy into lower-level objectives, measures, and operational details. Cascading is the key to organisation alignment around strategy. Team and individual goals link day-to-day work with department goals and corporate vision. Cascading is the key to organisation alignment around strategy. Performance measures are developed for all objectives at all organisation levels. As the goals are cascaded down through the organisation, objectives become more operational and tactical, as do the performance measures. Accountability follows the objectives and measures, as ownership is defined at each level. An emphasis on results and the strategies needed to produce results is communicated throughout the organisation.

Click here to view a video that explains how to align employees to the company strategy.