Deciding on Measures and Target Dates For Your Professional Action Plan
November 4th, 2009 | 
Author: I hope that the previous posts on setting goals and planning the action steps helped you to create two foundational pieces for your written professional development plan, or to coach someone else in creating their plan.
Many great professional development plans get lost and forgotten in the minutia of everyday work life. It helps to have measures (“metrics” is another term, but may be too exact to be useful in this context) and target dates to achieve the actions ?€“ otherwise, what use is planning?
Measures
Some of the actions in a professional development plan can have pretty “hard” metrics or measures; but usually, they will be “soft”. If an individual who is being coached is responsible for an organization that can measure increase in sales (for instance), it may well be that using this as a measurement of effectiveness and success would make sense. However, if you consider the kinds of behavioral goals listed in the post on goal setting, you will see that, given the goal examples listed, it would be difficult in most cases to come up with hard numbers to measure. I`m fine with that, and I find that most of the people and organizations I work in understand this.
The most common ways of “measuring” a behavioral change for an individual that I use:
- Oral feedback obtained from those who work with/for the individual can be obtained and consolidated once the goal is acheived. This can be done by asking targeted questions based on the goals and actions of the individual.
- A 360 can be re-administered and the results compared to the original 360 if at least nine months to a full year has passed since the original 360.
- The effects of the behavioral change can be observed in the individual or in the individual`s team by asking some questions such as: is this individual doing what they said they`d do? Is the team that reports to the individual more effective? Are the employees more engaged and responsive? Are deadlines being met that weren`t met previously?
Target Dates
Each action needs a target date. If new behaviors are being “tried on”, the target date might be a range from the date the behavior is first tried to the final date that it becomes a habit. I find it surprising that my clients can articulate well when they think a new way of communicating or interacting becomes “habit”. They seem to know, intrinsically, when they no longer have to think so hard about doing something differently.
I encourage you, and those you coach, to make the target dates reasonable, yet challenging. High achievers enjoy the challenge of a target date that is a bit of a stretch.
Next: I`ll do my best to defy the will of WordPress technology and upload an example of an action plan (if any of my clients are reading this, not to worry ?€“ it won`t be yours!). Wish me luck.
Posted in Uncategorized
12 Responses to “Deciding on Measures and Target Dates For Your Professional Action Plan”
Leave a Reply
View my complete profile
Mary Jo,
Great post. How would one structure long term goals in a professional development plan? Would you recommend the same “measurements” for long term goals? Thanks!
Great post! I’m a big planner so I love the concept of having target dates. However, plans sometimes don’t go according to plan, and we often miss our target date. When this occurs, what do you think are the main cause(s)? What do you suggest as ways to avoid these issues?
Kevin, measures should be customized to the goals. The ones I provided are simply examples. That said, I would think that they could be used for long term goals as well. I’ll let you know – I’ve just started working with a client who wants to make a decade-long plan.
Cirel, some causes of missing target dates may be “scope creep”, the actions might be the wrong ones, or lack of accountability and dedication to goals. These are all things that a mentor or coach can help with.
Thanks, once again, for your great post. I am currently coaching a manager where soliciting feedback, 360 or otherwise, is problematic. Perhaps it’s unreasonable even to ask, but what suggestions would you have to measure behavioral improvement without being able to get that feedback?
Thanks.
Mary,
Great poast! Behavioral change seems to be a difficult thing to effectively measure and compare but I think it is very important to make the effort. In my experience talking to many other co workers and team members is the most effective way to gage any improvement but you have to be aware of any possible bias. When setting target dates, how do you deal with people that don`t meet them?
Mary Jo,
Your post touches on my recent thoughts about rewards, measures and goals. The problem with basing rewards on measures and goals is that they often drive undesired behaviors in unexpected ways. I’m wondering if it would not be better to set goals as a team and reward individuals based on their contribution and competency. In this case, the reward is consistent with value and goals and measures can still be used effectively.
Bob,
Without knowing more of the context of your situation with your client, I cannot ethically respond to your question. Might I gently suggest that you consider getting training (if you haven’t already) from an ICF-accredited school that provides training in the executive coaching process? Alternatively (or in addition), hire an ICF-credentialed coach. There are coaches listed on the ICF website (www.coachfederation.org) who work with other external coaches. I found it helpful to do both of these things before I started my business.
Elijah, it depends on the reason they missed a target date, how often they’ve missed, how motivated they are, how willing they are to take responsibility for their actions, and I’m sure lots of other stuff that would come into play. Sorry. I feel like I’m dodging questions tonight, but this is another one I cannot ethically answer without a whole lot more information.
Some good food for thought in this post. The biggest pitfall, I see, to creating an action plan is that when a change is realized the focus is diverted and the behavior eventually returns. I’m getting better at setting target dates and creating a plan but I do see the advantages in setting enough time to be sure changes become a habit. Are there ways to determine if behavioral change will persist?
I look forward to hearing some general long term measures associated with the 10 year plan! Thanks!
Tony, it might take longer than you (or I) think! Breaking old habits and creating new ones require some rewiring in the brain. The best marker that I can think of is that the behavior should be changed permanently when it becomes habit – i.e., you no longer have to intentionally make the effort to think about or strive to perform the new behavior. And then, as you see, stresses or a change in the environment may still prompt a return to the old behavior. This is where a good coach (whether your manager or an external coach) might help. When I’ve had coaches to stay accountable to, and I know I’ll be checking in with them, I’m so much more conscious of being intentional about changes I’m working on.
Loren, I agree that personal goals should ALWAYS be aligned with those of the team or organization. Thanks!
Mary Jo, Thanks for your advice. I will certainly look into your suggestions. Bob Hall