StrengthsFinder Series, Part 6: Your StrengthsFinder Objectives

Now that you’ve developed your “First 18 Months” StrengthsFinder Scorecard (refer to Part V in this series), the next step is to identify your key objectives, objective-attainment owners plus target dates. A word about objective-attainment owners — their role is to ensure that the work gets accomplished by holding others accountable to the individual tasks that must be tackled in order to achieve each objective. Owners must clearly state this expectation up front otherwise team members may incorrectly assume that the owner is the sole responsible party — the “doer” of each task.

The best way to approach any type of organizational change, is to create an executable project plan. In this case, your StrengthsFinder Project Plan must align with your StrengthsFinder Scorecard otherwise you are likely to fall short of attaining your overall goal, Creating a Sustainable High Performing Team, because you will not have achieved your success definition metrics. Again, refer to Part V in this series for success definition specifics. In general, project plans are invaluable in that they:

• Establish clear, realistic expectations;
• Provide a roadmap that all can follow;
• Serve as a convenient tool that can be leveraged to both socialize expectations plus enlist expectation buy-in;
• Enable accountability as objective and task owners are held to advertised target dates; and
• Promote transparency so all know who is working on what, why and when.

The below project plan directly aligns with the six (6) Phase I Enablers captured in the sample StrengthsFinder Scorecard. In terms of populating your project plan, first identify your key objectives which are an extension of your scorecard’s evaluative criteria. Second, identify all tasks that, when completed, will ensure that you attain each key objective. The below example does not include tasks because they will vary organization to organization. Do, however, include tasks in your StrengthsFinder Project Plan. It’s essential.

Goal: Create a Sustainable High Performing Team
StrengthsFinder Project Plan – Phase I (The Enablers)
(An Example)

Once you’ve identified all tasks and vetted your StrengthsFinder Project Plan with all of your Key Stakeholders, including objective and task owners, the next step is to simply execute the tasks on your plan while concurrently holding everyone accountable to plan target dates.