Page 169 - Retaining Top Employees

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The Role of the Manager, Part 1 157

success. An organization
Developing Goal-
that does not provide realis-
Setting Skills
tic, specific goals will have This is not the place for
great difficulty retaining its discussing the art and skill of setting
top performers. goals.We’re concentrating on the spe-
For these employees, cific goal-setting needs of top per-
setting goals should formers and I’m assuming that you
understand the underlying principles.
achieve three purposes:
However,if you need to brush up on
1. Ensure that the your basic goal-setting skills,I recom-
employee does the mend any books by Jim Cairo or Gary
necessary tasks of the Ryan Blair—both excellent communi-
cators on this topic.
job.
2. Provide projects that
challenge the employee.
3. Provide meaningful work by showing the employee the
relevance of the job.

Set Goals for the Job
The core purpose of setting goals is to ensure that your employ-
ee achieves the tasks set out in his or her job description (or
otherwise established). This is the most commonly undertaken
(and most straightforward) goal-setting activity.
Juanita will begin the goal-setting process with Joe by out-
lining his sales targets and showing him how to establish
his call routine, construct call sheets, and complete his
monthly report.
Set Goals to Challenge
With your best employees, goal setting cannot stop at agreeing
how to achieve job-specific tasks. They need to be challenged:
prolonged repetition of the same tasks will rapidly lead to bore-
dom and a sense of being underutilized—a sure way to start
your top performer on the road to looking elsewhere for a more
demanding job. Accordingly, you need to convert tasks into
projects that challenge your employees.
In briefing Joe, Juanita starts by helping him set the first