Many of us were taught that to succeed, whether in your personal life or at work, you must create a plan. Planning, indeed, provides direction and minimizes risks. However, in reality, there will always be interruptions that demand our attention to focus elsewhere and, thus, dilute the plan. To make matter worse, the high tendency for leaders to plan in “silo” mode – without inputs from their subordinates – further sabotages the success of the plan.

All work performance directly or indirectly impacts the achievement of business goals. As frontline employees are closest to the action on the ground, it is paramount for their leaders to work with them when creating the game plan for performance. In other words, leaders should make it a practice to co-create SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound) goals with their staff. Throughout that process, leaders can leverage the right technology to automate reporting, track progress, recalibrate or add goals, and provide customizable performance statistics.

Organizations today are increasingly embracing technology and innovation in their business operations to achieve higher performance. The vast magnitude of disruptions pervading every industry presents a constant challenge for leaders to seek new approaches to develop plans that optimize employees’ performance. Unwittingly, leaders and their frontline managers are often caught up in activities other than those that have an impact on business outcomes. On the other spectrum, employees can become dispirited when their attempts to contribute suggestions on improvements or to shape or create goals are not acknowledged. These challenges are detrimental to an organization’s overall growth, and organizations must address them carefully.

A hybrid approach to tackle these challenges is to engage all relevant stakeholders in the planning process so that leaders and their employees come together to co-create SMART goals that align from individual to department to business. Here are some guiding questions to use when co-creating goals:

• Intention: What do you want to achieve?
• Specific: Who else is involved and can contribute? What is the goal about? Why?
• Measurable: How do you know if you have achieved the goal? By how much, how often or how many?
• Attainable: Is the goal achievable?
• Relevance: How is the goal linked to your department or organization goal(s)?
• Time-bound: When do you believe you can achieve the goal successfully?
• Supporting resources: What resources do you need?

Leaders need to deliberately create favorable conditions to engage their employees to come forward for this co-planning practice so that their feedback is valued, and the team takes follow-up actions. Here are some tips for leaders to provide favorable conditions for the planning process:

• Set clear expectations for sharing concerns about the goal and relevant issues.
• Implement practices that support trust. Adopt an open-door policy, make resources accessible for dialogue and encourage feedback.
• Recognize employees’ contributions when they make suggestions.
• Leverage technology to automate processes such as capturing critical information and tracking and reporting progress. Use that information for the next round of planning or recalibrating.
• Help employees create better goals by dividing complex goals into portions with milestones that are intentional and achievable.

This process is not meant as a one-off planning and implementation exercise. Rather, “game plan” here refers to a dynamic plan that responds to new inputs and generates progress that also build confidence for leaders and their employees. These co-created goals can be shaped more effectively to better respond to new challenges, align to business directions and yield significant results for the organization in the long term.