Jane Boyd httpjaneboydorg GoalsWhat you want to accomplish O

Jane Boyd

http://janeboyd.org

Goals—What you want to accomplish

Organizational Goals : What are your organization’s one to three main goals for the next 12

to 18 months?

Marketing Goals : What are your one to three marketing goals (how you’ll use marketing to

reach those organizational goals)?

Examples:

o†Organizational goal for Environmental Health Partners (EHP)

§ Improve regional health by significantly reducing exposure to toxic chemicals—lead in homes,

bay contamination, and air pollution from trucks, ships, power plants and other sources.

o†Marketing goals

§ Build awareness about EHP’s work and impact.

§ Motivate 15 area residents to attend a twopart

community meeting (to be held in each of four

neighborhoods in the region), to build their understanding of the relationship between health and

the environment and train them as effective advocates.

§ Forge partnerships with key partner organizations in the region with existing relationships with

citizens and policymakers.

Solution

Definition

Organization goals: Those ends that an organization seeks to achieve by its existence and operation.

Goals are predetermined and describe future results toward which present efforts are directed.

Types of Goals

Official goals are the general aims of an organization as expressed in the corporate charter, annual reports, public statements and mission statements. Their purpose is to give the organization a favourable public image, provide legitimacy, and justify its activities.

Operative goals reflect the actual intention of an organization. They describe the concrete steps to be taken to achieve the organization\'s purpose. They often don\'t correspond with official goals.

For example: Many organizations mention environmentally friendly behaviour as a goal of the organization. However in a study of organizations actually including environmental friendly behaviour as an organizational goal, very few had corresponding operative goals, i.e. very few delineated how such behaviour would be implemented in the different departments of the organization.

Additional examples: Most prisons have rehabilitation of prisoners, preparing them for re-integrations into society as their official goal, however in practice, most of their operative procedures involve aspects of custodial care. For many voluntary organizations, especially in these days of funding cutbacks, the community service which is their official mandate or goal takes secondary precedence to the fundraising activities which will ensure their survival.

Reasons for differences between official and operative goals

Some organizations never state official goals, not to attract potential competition or opposition.

One can determine an organizations true goals not by reading their charter but by examining resource allocation process.

Benefits of organizational goals

Key organizational goals

Drucker, an organizational guru, has identified 8 key areas in which organizations should establish result oriented goals:

Individual vs organization goals

Organizations don\'t make goals; individuals do. Therefore, goals will reflect the interests of the individual. The greater the overlap between an individual\'s goals and organizational goals, the better for the organization. Unfortunately often this is not the case. For example, it may be in the best interests of an organization to amalgamate certain departments or to out-source some kinds of tasks, but this may infringe on the power of certain departments and their leaders, so these goals will not be supported.

Goals are set in an organization by creating coalitions of non-competing groups. There is constant bargaining among the different organizational leaders to find the right direction of the organization. Organizational groups with greater power will have more control over the direction of the organization. This is not always in the best interests of the organization.