What becomes of the objectives that your board identifies in its annual Strategic Plan? If your board is typical, the weekend retreat remains entirely disconnected from daily operations, and so do the ideas that you generated there. The Strategic Plan sits on a shelf, collecting dust until the next year's retreat. What if everybody in the organization saw a dashboard of progress toward each strategic objective every time they logged on? They could, but you need the right technology. Board management software with goal-tracking capabilities can keep your board on track to reach its goals.
How Software Tracks Goals
Say your school board identifies three priorities at its annual meeting: 1) promoting student employability; 2) increasing institutional communication with colleges; and 3) doubling the foreign language faculty. Each goal is then broken down into steps that need to be taken to reach the objective. Take the third goal: doubling the foreign language faculty. Achieving it could require:- Forming a search committee;
- Advertising a German and a French teaching position;
- Meeting to assess candidates;
- Inviting four finalists for each position to interview;
- Conducting the interviews;
- Making an offer;
- Negotiating; and
- Finalizing HR duties for the new hire.
How It Helps
Goal-tracking keeps board members focused all year long on whether or not prioritized objectives are being met. The dashboard (with an image like a speedometer, thermometer or bar graph) can be placed as the first thing board members see when they log in, creating a visual reminder of progress toward goals. It then doesn't come as a surprise at the end of a year when it becomes apparent that too little was done about reaching a goal that was allegedly deemed important - at which point, it's too late to change course. In the absence of such a barometer, it is far too easy to lose sight of goals in the sheer volume of board business. Keeping focused on goals improves outcomes. Monitoring progress on a regular basis has been shown to motivate all those whose work contributes to reaching goals, improving both persistence and morale - especially if the goals are both ambitious and specific. In over 400 studies, such monitoring improved outcomes 91% of the time. (Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1990). Closely monitoring progress toward goals may even become a requirement for school boards. Fed up with long-term underperforming districts, the Texas Department of Education has implemented legislation mandating close goal-tracking (the Lone-Star Governance Act). It even requires each board meeting agenda to have at least 50% of the items for discussion measurably related to one or more of the goals of the district. State officials can attend board meetings to keep an eye on compliance. Board members must have the goals of the district committed to memory. Other states have been in touch with Texas expressing interest in the legislation.Conclusion
A goal-tracking feature of board management software helps boards meet their goals. The visual indication of progress that it provides empowers the board members to conduct the executive oversight that is their shared responsibility. Without such a compass, how can a board be expected to steer the ship? Technology puts the board in the driver's seat where they belong.Media Highlights
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In this buyer’s guide, we explore what a market-leading ESG solution should look like and highlight the key areas organisations should be prioritising as they embark on their search.