Goals and objectives get a whole lot of attention this time of year. Companies create new revenue objectives; individuals resolve to do something differently. This oversimplifies things a bit, but you get the general idea. The New Year is the time to initiate change, raise the bar, create new challenges, make things happen.

Companies decide to increase sales. Develop new marketing plans. Introduce new product lines. Open new locations.

Individuals want to lose weight. Get in shape. Start a new hobby. Work on the house.

Unfortunately, it is estimated that as many as 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions end in dismal failure – before January is even two weeks old. And, although accurate data on the success of corporate goal-setting is difficult to find, I suspect the results may not be considerably better. Why? Because what most people and most companies believe to be “goals” are really nothing more than pipe dreams.

Which of the following two statements are most likely to result in progress?

1. I need to start running.

2. I will run two miles immediately after work, three times per week (Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday) in 11 minutes or less, for eight weeks. I will record my times and assess my progress weekly.

One is a dream, or, at best, a good idea. The other is a defined and measurable plan. And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between success and failure in goal-setting. To reach an objective of any complexity requires a clear and specific understanding of how that objective will be reached. Successful goal-setters don’t simply visualize an objective, they create a detailed, step-by-step, measurable process for reaching that objective.

The same problem occurs in the corporate world. Instead of a specific objective and detailed plans, the company gets a number to shoot for. Someone at the top decides on a lofty objective – a 20% increase in sales, for example – and everyone is encouraged to do their part to make it happen. In some cases, there may even be a “strategic planning” session where key personnel debate a number of tactics that may (or may not) help the company reach the objective.

The problem is that a number is not a strategy. In fact, a number is not even a goal until you put a plan behind it. Until then, it’s just a dream; or, at best, a decent idea.

The Importance to Your Employees

This whole idea has tremendous importance for you, certainly, but it is also extremely important for your employees. Clear goals and measurable progress, as it turns out, are crucial components of employee engagement. Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer discussed this idea in a recent HBR article:

To get yourself and your team off to a good start for the new year, focus on progress. Our research discovered that fostering progress in meaningful work is the most important way to keep people highly engaged at work — even if that progress is a “small win”.

We call this phenomenon the progress principle; it works because people want to feel that they are contributing to something that matters.

This time of year is the perfect opportunity to review career and workplace goals with each of your employees. However, to make the process effective, resist the urge to simply discuss the employee’s past performance, or to just throw out a couple of important-sounding objectives to consider for the New Year. Instead, identify one or more specific career and/or workplace objectives and create a clear game plan for attaining those objectives. Create milestones – the “small wins” – that define progress. Create clear metrics so performance or improvement can be assessed at regular intervals.

And, if you’re not exactly sure how to create clear goals and defined plans, make that your New Year’s resolution, but give yourself a chance: Quit hoping. Start planning™.

So, I recently came across an article by Steve Tobak entitled “7 Signs You May Be a Bad Manager.” Good article. Good observations. In fact, one of Steve’s observations immediately caught my attention:

One thing most bad managers have in common is they’re not consciously aware that they’re bad managers. And if they are aware of it on some level, they’re probably not willing to admit it to anyone, least of all themselves.

I have worked with a lot of companies and, in doing so, I have trained a lot of managers. My experience? Good ones want to get better. Bad ones often have absolutely no idea that they are causing problems and stifling performance. Ironically, it’s usually not their fault. Having demonstrated their workplace competence, the next logical step is to promote these performers to a position of responsibility – and then provide them with absolutely no management leadership training.

How’s that working out for ya?

I’ll tell you how it’s working out – badly. In some cases, very badly. As Tobak points out, one of the seven sure signs that you are a bad manager is your employees are miserable. Just how miserable depends on how bad the boss is, but if my experience is any indicator, employees can get really miserable. Example: In a recent employee engagement survey that I conducted, there were sixteen questions and we used a scale of one-to-five. A perfect engagement score would be eighty, and one employee scored the survey at twenty-three points. On five of the sixteen questions, this employee chose a “1″ or “Failing” score.

Miserable? Undoubtedly.

Steps You Can Take to Avoid Making Your Employees Miserable

In the workplace, there are engaged employees, not engaged employees, and actively disengaged employees – as in completely miserable and working to make everyone else feel that way. Let’s take a quick look at three things managers must do to keep their employees out of the miserable category.

1) Managers have to recognize that employees want – more than just about anything in the workplace – to be appreciated. This means that the first order of business for any good manager is to recognize and reward performance. That whole “just-cowboy-up-and-do-your-job-because-we-pay-you” mentality isn’t going to work for most employees. Granted, some employees don’t need “atta-boys” as much as others, but you can never go wrong telling your employees you appreciate their hard work.

On the other hand, the complete failure to acknowledge what your employees contribute to the workplace is tantamount to putting them on the fast track to misery. You ask for hard work. You ask for commitment. You ask for accountability. So, “Hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort?” [Not that total consciousness on your deathbed will work exactly, but you get the idea.]

2) Employees like to know where they stand. They like to know what they need to do to improve, get a raise, move up in the organization, get additional training, whatever. If you’re keeping that knowledge a secret, your employees are going to get frustrated. Guaranteed. Even if the employee is a static employee who has no expectation of promotion or advancement, he or she still wants to know where they stand. At least once each quarter, spend a little time with your employees (1-on-1) and conduct a mini-review with them.

The alternative is not very appealing. You don’t communicate, employees are left to guess how you feel about their performance, and they start their journey down the road to misery. Frankly, if you can’t find the time to provide clear and useful feedback to your employees, you probably deserve the title of “bad manager.”

3) Finally, you need to tone down the criticism. Frustrated managers often find themselves criticizing employees on a regular basis. After all, “you just can’t find good employees,” and, “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” After you rant and rave for ten minutes, of course.

For an employee, your incessant negativity and criticism is the equivalent of taking the “A” Train to Miseryville. To avoid this death trap, make your performance expectations clear, and use sub-par performance or mistakes as an opportunity to coach and train. The reality is that you probably don’t enjoy being critical any more than your employees enjoy enduring it, so the better approach is to train and coach. If an employee cannot reach a defined level of performance, it might be time for them to go a different direction, which is far more productive for the employee and your team than venting on that employee two or three times a week.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, managers play the biggest role in determining both performance and enthusiasm in the workplace. If both are lacking in your department, you might want to step back and consider these three ideas. After all, at this point you are probably just as miserable as your employees.