Set goals
When Cameron does the annual budget, he does it both top down and bottom up. It may seem like an oxymoron, but it works.
He first looks at last year’s data and adds 10 percent, and then looks at how that plays out across the organization. Then he gets the numbers from his individual regions to understand what their challenges are for the next year. He then takes his top-down analysis, combines it with his bottom-up analysis and meets in the middle.
“The more I can play to what the fields can commit to, the better off we can all commit to,” he says. “ … It’s a matter of No. 1, understanding what the manager can commit to, No. 2, checking that with the top-down budget of what we’re expecting, and that’s the delta I have to manage to get everybody to the same goal line.”
Having solid data and regional input helps him justify the company’s overall goals to the board.
“We’ll get expectations from the board, and the right thing to do right then and there is to make sure we have all the data and we can go back to them if we feel the numbers aren’t fair and such,” he says.
But just because you set company goals doesn’t mean you’re going to reach them. You then have to take those company goals and break them down to different departments and individuals.
“The biggest thing is setting the bar realistically on both sides,” Cameron says. “Some management style says, ‘If I want to get 10 out of my team, I’m going to say 20, and they’re going to work as hard as they can, and maybe they’ll hit 15.’ I’m not a big fan of that management style because even if they hit 15, they’ll feel that they’ve failed because you expected 20.”
Instead of setting the bar too high, look at the data you have and push the envelope a little past the current performance.
“I’m more of a fan of, ‘OK, if 10 is a fair bar, can we squeeze maybe and get to 11 or 12?’” he says. “So 12 is a fair number, we’ll budget on 12, and then if you get to 15, you’ve done tremendously well and feel real good about it. I think one of the things that is most important is people need to feel they can achieve their goals. Goals can’t be too low. They can’t be too high.”
If you’re not sure if your goals are reasonable, then look at how people are currently performing under the standards you have in place.
“Understand your business well enough to set reasonable goals,” Cameron says. “As a rule of thumb, 60 to 70 percent of your team should be hitting their goals. A subset of that should be exceeding their goals, and you’ll have 10 to 15 percent that, for whatever reason, are not coming near their goals. They need to be retrained or retrenched.”
If you set reasonable goals that people can achieve, then you’re going to foster a fair and consistent work environment where people feel good about the company.
“More than half the time, people should feel they’re achieving the goals set out for them,” he says. “If that’s not the case, you’re not going to have a company that people enjoy working for. You’re not going to have a lot of success stories. You’re just going to have a lot of frustration. It’s the guys that are overachieving that breed enthusiasm for the rest of the company to believe they can overachieve on their role, as well.”
