Ask a supervisor how they feel about the performance evaluation process. “Tedious”, “time consuming” or “exhaustingly painful,” are just some of the descriptions they use. Ask supervisors what they think about coming up with employee goals for the upcoming year. “Difficult,” “confusing,” “even worse than writing the eval itself,” proclaims supervisors. What if there was a book that provided dynamic words and phrases to make the goal development process easier? 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals (Ready–to-use Phrases That Really Get Results) by Paul Falcone, does just that. 2600 Phrases That Really get Results helps supervisors to write active performance goals which are clearly understood and leaves no room for ambiguity.

Employee goals are needed for a purpose. They help to connect employee performance with organizational vision. Employees rely on their managers to set the path to get them there via goals. Putting pen to paper, however, to create the path is challenging. This is especially true in a period when employees are expected to do more with less.

While the core of the book is designated toward setting employee goals, the introduction focuses on the reader as a leader. It discusses the importance of “selfless leadership” in interactions with employees. The introduction also provides informative tips not only on how to use the book to save time, but also how to write persuasive goals.

2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals is divided into two primary sections. The first section of the book concentrates on the core competencies typically found in any organizational annual performance review. This makes the book extremely helpful regardless of the occupation. The second section of the book focuses on goals for specific industries such as sales, Human Resources and operations.

One great feature of this book is that it not only breaks down each specific goal, but it also breaks down how the goal should look at every level; entry level, administrative/operational, individual contributor, front-line manager and senior leader.

A customer satisfaction goal would be broken down like this for example,

Early career goals - "Simplify processes, learn what works, and apply it in new ways.”

Administrative /operational level - "Identify the source of the three most common complaints and prepare front–end solutions to address them proactively."

Individual contributor level - “Find creative ways of remaining in touch with your clients by providing value-added information that helps them do their jobs better.”

Front-line supervisory and managerial level - “Make your leading client developers subject matter experts who share best practices with their peers.”

Senior leader level - “Link organizational profit and growth directly to customer satisfaction and repeat business.”

These are just examples of one suggestion from each level. Each level has from 5 to 30 example phrases to use for each goal. This provides a wide range of options depending on the competency.

While the book provides an excellent frame work for writing goals, supervisors must remember the SMART goal setting model and still provide time constraints for goal completion.

2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals (Ready-to-use Phrases that Really Get Results) by Paul Falcone is an excellent resource book for managers and supervisors involved in the performance evaluation and goal setting process.



Disclosure: This book was provided free of charge as a review copy by AMACON Books.