By Brian Goodlander
Goals are important drivers for the human psyche. Without goals, we tend to flounder and move without purpose. Goals work the same way for organizations, such as your officials association. However, there is more to goal-setting than just brainstorming some great new ideas and hoping they occur. It takes planning, commitment and resources.
Goal planning. Time is needed for effective goal planning. Trying to come up with truly obtainable, actionable and useful goals in the last 10 minutes of an association board meeting does not usually generate good vision and planning. Generally, a good time to plan goals is at the conclusion of the season or year for the next season or year. Set apart some time (maybe the first board meeting of the year) to dedicate to that discussion.
Setting goals that can be achieved in the short term and that can be achieved over the long haul is a valuable exercise. Short-term goals might be to increase membership by 20 percent over the year by more advertising of association benefits, lower dues or improved training sessions. An example of a long-term goal may be to increase official retention by 10 percent over the next five years by creating an officials’ support group, a mentoring program or a coach-official interface committee. Do not be afraid to think about pie-in-the-sky goals, but realize that there has to be steps to each goal. Those smaller steps can be the short-term goals that over a period of years can reach your penultimate goal.
Commitment. Once you have a good list of goals, it is very important to publicly commit to reaching those goals. At your end-of-the-season banquet or in your association newsletter, announce the goals that have been set by the board and association and the actions planned to reach those goals. For longer term goals, give an update on your progress toward the goal. You may not necessarily be committing to reaching the goal in the announced time period, rather you are committing to work toward the goal with a concerted effort. Just like in sports, the goal is what you want to achieve but often some of the best work and joy in the game comes from the energy, creativity and perseverance in the attempts to reach the goal.
Furthermore, tracking your progress is key to reaching a goal. A common mantra for goals is, “You achieve what you measure.” Follow the progress against each of your goals and celebrate successes when they are achieved. You can also learn from this tracking about how much time it really takes to institute a new program in your association. Was your timing for the goal too aggressive or too relaxed? Record your experiences and refine new goals with the information gained in your tracking. By discussing progress at each board meeting, you also reinforce the commitment of the association to reach a goal, keeping the people responsible on task, knowing that they will be held accountable for that progress.
Resources. Most associations are volunteer organizations in which the board members and at-large members work on association goals on a spare-time basis. Holding board and association members to timelines can be difficult when their personal priorities (e.g., family, health, career) conflict with that timeline.
Assignments for goals should happen based on the passion the individual has for the task, the number of other tasks that they have committed to achieving and their technical ability to reach the goal. Commonly an association has their own “movers and shakers” that make things happen. The tendency is to continue to pile tasks onto those Type A personalities. Effective board leaders will balance the tasks and use those people to drive goals but provide them with an empowered group of people to lead. Redundancy is important in organizations to minimize complete stalls in programs due to personal conflicts. Again, celebrating successes is very important to keep those resources energized and ready to come back for more tasks.
Brian Goodlander referees various levels of soccer in the Cincinnati area.
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