h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

it's been pretty easy and "I don't care" for me over the last few years since "secure promotion to manager" has pretty much been my sole aim.

So now I have that one under my belt I have to make new goals. First, I do need to pick up more of what bean-counting actually is, that much is clear. But I also have a feeling things using the words Leadership and Team will be required.

4 or 5 are enough - so, good people of h2g2 (well those subscribed here anyway) any ideas?

Do your goals have to be real? Can they be couched in impenetrable business-speak? If so, you can use a random jargon generator like this one:

http://website.lineone.net/~sbigland/Torchtext/buzzgen.htm

unfortunately they have to be real and I need them to be somewhat measurable, or else I'll have something imposed on me.

However I like the idea of using jargon to describe them

You gotta find that correct balance of apathy and ambition.

Somewhere between "still have a job in 5 years" and "world domination" should be your aim.


Recent events at my job have put me at the lower end of this scale but gave me a snazzy term to describe my current goals. Now I just aim for "technically acceptable".

Maybe first find 5 areas you want those goals in. I have absolutely no idea about this sort of thing, but I'd guess you could aim to achieve something in each of the following fields

- Management and leadership - showing the minions who's boss.
- (as you say) : further qualifications in business studies or similar
- Making your mark among the higher echelons on the basis of ability, but also your irresistible personality
- Encouraging training and qualifications in your staff
- Something completely outside the box like starting a company football team.

Master online origami

Safety is a good thing to have in a company. From a purely mercenary point of view, a sick or injured employee is an unproductive one. So your first goal is:

- to nurture a culture of safety in the workplace

Customer focus:

- to understand the needs of the customer in order to increase customer value

Now that you're a manager, you need to be able to influence people:

- to improve interaction with others by evaluation of their character, in particular by a better understanding of Myers/Briggs Personality Test results

Hammering home the message:

- to improve ability to get the message across by attending a course in presentation skills

thanks folks - a few things to ponder there.
I'll have a meeting with my boss later where he will reject "world domination" (as he does every year) and "learning to flip my pen around my hand like the MD does" in favour of something like "taking part in the month end reporting even though I don't have a clue about accounting stuff"

and

"going much deeper into compliance testing"

maybe I'll add "herding cats" this year, because, frankly, that's what I seem to be doing most of the time.

I seem to remember you were good at that one.

You've already identifed that you need to be more clued up on accounting stuff - how will you acheiev this/ is there a course you can attend? Any available training? Or will you do self-study? Whcihever - be specific and make that part of your target.

For the team - use words like encourage, foster, develop. "Encourage personal development and innovation". "Allocate work in an equitable manner" "Provide regular feedback and agree clear objectives"

(Back when I've cogged some more off our latest competency framework....)

OK, ours are grouped under 3 main headings:

Setting Direction (includes sub-headings seeing the big picture, changing and improving, making effective decisions)

Engaging People (Leading and communicating, collaborating and partnering, building capacity for all)

Delivering results (VFM, Quality, timliness, using delivery partners)

You've talked before about opportunities for women and equality of treatment between those with/ without children - is there anything specific there you could set as a goal?

German doesn't have the wide scope of Manager-Speak that English does. I don't think. Maybe it's a secret society with their own jargon. A spade will usually be called a spade, though. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of beating about the bush and slippery vocabulary to be heard.

mine is, however, in English. For Koreans...

I can get away with Engrish sometimes though, which is amusing!

I can't give you any content, but in goalspeak, there is a phrase which might help you fomulate...

Make your goals SMART
S - specific
M - measurable
A - achievable
R - realistic
T - time based

Rather than saying "I want to be be a good car dealer" you would say "I want to sell five used and two new cars within the next two weeks."

"I want to streamline the work processes within the HR team by implementing the company guidelines for 2016 by July 2014, thus speeding up the firing of surplus personnel."