Assigned Goals & Some Feedback on Poor Performance

Did you ever receive a performance review indicating you had done absolutely no work on an assigned goal?  I have.

Do you usually set your own goals, or are your goals assigned to you? Do you easily accept any goals assigned to you?   I’ve struggled with this in the past when I wasn’t fully bought in, but over the years I became better at accepting assigned goals.  There were occurrences when I didn’t think the goals were fair or valid, and I put little effort to completing them.  One time I received a written performance appraisal stating exactly that.

Career Beginnings

I began my career writing computer code as a Cobol programmer.  I progressed well in the IT organization of the former New Brunswick Telephone Company. As my skills and ambitions grew, I decided I wanted to work in sales and marketing, so I took a position titled Application Analyst, which was a great job, although I didn’t fully realize it at the time. What appealed to me was that I would support sales people when they discussed technical solutions with customers, and this experience would enable me to transition to a sales and marketing position at a later date.

Using my technical skills, which were current at the time, I supported some customer software and hardware applications, and I accompanied sales people to discuss the art of the possible. I also performed some internal systems support.  There was tremendous variety in the job, and I learned a great deal, including the ability to manage multiple competing priorities. This is what I most appreciate looking back at the role.  

Very Direct Feedback

One year when planning my upcoming annual performance goals with my manager Phil, I was assigned the task of transferring an internal software application from a minicomputer to some other unspecified hardware, in order to speed up the remaining applications.  I was informed emphatically that my budget for this was zero. Zero.

I didn’t bother to clarify.  I didn’t seek to understand.  I decided he wasn’t serious. This goal clearly was not fair or valid. Then six months later I received my mid-year performance review.

In that review I received good comments in all areas but one, where the written comments indicated ‘Jim has done nothing to migrate the SAM system off the VS65 minicomputer.” That was accurate.  I guess more senior managers were more serious about getting this work done than I realized. (I still have that written review.  It’s a good reminder for me.)

After receiving this feedback, I interviewed some of the more senior managers to understand this better. I learned that the SAM system had been hogging system resources, and for many years there had been desire to migrate the application to another platform.  But it never got done, it never became a priority, it remained as an unglamorous piece of work, and frustration had mounted.

Additionally, the more senior managers knew that we had some decommissioned hardware that could operate the application on its own, although some complementary hardware would be needed.  So, I worked with some technicians and we got the work done, not without some of the twists, turns and surprises that occur with most IT projects.

Conclusion

It’s great when we can select our own goals. However, often organizations assign goals to people and work teams. Well aligned goals support other organizational objectives.

As leaders, we need to communicate clearly and frequently on the reasons goals were selected and assigned, and we need to communicate frequently on progress, and observed behaviors that will lead to goal attainment.

As team members, it is best to understand how assigned goals fit with other organizational objectives.  Regardless, as team members we do need to accept responsibility for working to achieve assigned goals.