5 Tips for Successfully Executing Agency Goals
Goal setting is critical to leading an agency that remains focused on future growth and success. These planning sessions can be full of creative, outside of the box thinking where “anything is possible. While it can be easy to get carried away with massive lists of goals and to-do’s, it is important that there are steps taken to evaluate and select goals that will have the biggest impact.
How do agency leaders identify and execute goals for the organization?
Make sure goals are in alignment with the company vision: The company vision is the agency roadmap to success and all goals should reflect it. If there are initiatives on the list that cannot be tied to the vision, there is a good chance that working on those things will not move the company forward and will actually create a distraction from those goals that should be taking priority.
Pause & Reflect: Examining the results of the last year is an important part of determining next steps for the future. Review initiatives from the prior year. Was the agency able to meet or exceed all goals? When it comes to the goals which the agency was able to meet, how was that achieved? And in those areas where the agency fell short, what improvements are needed to make those a reality?
Taking the time to evaluate what has worked or not worked in the past is a great way to make sure you don’t repeat past mistakes and that you continue to push forward with those strategies that have served the agency well.
Quality over Quantity: There may be a long list of idea generated when everyone is collaborating and brainstorming, but it is important to evaluate all ideas, keep those that help the agency make it’s biggest strides towards accomplishing the company vision.
Taking on too many initiatives at one time will prevent the agency from being able to focus it’s efforts and resources and sets everyone up for failure. Those goals that don’t make the cut this year can always be resurrected for consideration the following year.
Define steps needed to take goals a reality: Identifying the goals is an important part of the process but creating an action plan is even more critical. For every initiative that is selected for the agency, there needs to be a path from where the organization is now to where it wants to be. Making sure that all employees involved are clear on what steps need to be taken in order to achieve success is critical to taking the goals from words on a piece of paper an really making them active initiatives for the organization.
What Does Success Look Like? Accountability remains a critical component to ensuring the agency continues to move forward towards the designated goals. For every initiative the agency has established, there should be KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators). The KPI’s are the mechanism by which agency leaders will be able to analyze and understand if progress towards to goals is on target or if adjustments to the process need to be made.
Transparency and communication out to the entire organization throughout the process will help keep everyone engaged and moving in the same direction.
Having ambitious goals for an agency is the sign of a growth-minded organization. Taking the time to be deliberate and intentional about identifying goals and the steps needed to achieve them will allow the agency to continue building a path towards success.
For more insight on this topic, check out the full episode of The Independent Agent podcast here!
