As the new year approaches, you may find yourself thinking about your personal resolutions. Maybe you want to eat more veggies. Or spend more time with your family. Or read 15 books.
When it comes to your healthcare organization, setting goals can encourage you towards positive change throughout the year. By taking the time to set meaningful goals, you’re able to make more strategic decisions when you’re faced with new challenges.
You may write these goals in a journal, or on a sticky note placed where you’ll see it often. You may set organizational goals over lunch or over Zoom. There are just as many ways to set goals as there are goals to make.
So, what approach will work best for your healthcare organization?
Here are 3 different approaches to goal setting that can help your team be successful in 2022.
1. Set SMART Goals and OKRs
Possibly one of the most common goal-setting approaches is the SMART goal. From elementary school on, SMART goals can be found wherever goal setting is mentioned.
“S.M.A.R.T” stands for goals that are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Actionable
- Relevant
- Timely
SMART goal mostly refers to the structure of the goal — and this can be a helpful tool alongside the writing of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
Like a SMART goal, OKRs should be measurable and actionable. Typically, with OKRs, you have a general objective and 3 to 5 key results you want to see related to that objective. SMART goals can help you with framing these results.
Example SMART Goals For Healthcare Organizations
It can take time to make sure your goal hits all the elements of a SMART goal. Try piecing your goals together bit by bit to ensure that they are well-rounded.
Here are 3 SMART goals that might be beneficial for your healthcare organization’s content strategy needs:
- Increase overall average monthly traffic on the new site by over 25% in the first 5 months after launch through rebranding and redesigning.
- Get 500 downloads on each of our top ten podcast episodes this year by producing high-quality content with expert thought leaders.
- Increase organic search referrals by over 500% in the first quarter by producing 40 new pages of content with a focus on SEO.
2. Find Your One Word
While SMART goals work for some people and organizations, others find them restricting. If setting specific goals makes you feel anxious, then SMART goals probably aren’t for you.
This doesn’t mean you’re a “bad” goal-setter — it just means that another goal-setting process may be more productive.
A different way of thinking about your goals is with the “One Word” approach. With this method, you don’t have to set all of your goals right now. Instead, choose one single word to guide your year.
This word acts as your compass. When it comes time to make important decisions about programs, priorities, or projects, you only need to ask yourself which choices would help you and your organization fully embody the word you chose.
My One Word for 2022
“My one word for 2022 is RESULTS. This means I’m only focusing my energy, time, and resources on the actions, clients, and team members that are helping to achieve a shared goal.”
Kadesha Thomas Smith, Founder & CEO, CareContent
Example One-Word Goals For Healthcare Organizations
There are many word banks online that you can use to choose your one word. Try this exercise where everyone chooses their own one word, and then you try to come up with one word for the whole team, department, or organization.
Here are some examples of one word goals:
- Grow
- Imagine
- Joy
- Simplify
- Collaboration
- Inspire
- Challenge
- Maintenance
- Innovate
3. Design A Vision Board
With all of the stress and burnout you may be experiencing— especially in the healthcare field — setting goals for 2022 might be the last thing you want to do. This year might be a great time to make goal setting a little more creative. That’s where the vision board comes in.
A vision board is a visual (and sometimes physical) representation of your goals. You can make your vision board digitally with a design tool like Canva or Photoshop, or you can make your vision board more traditionally with scissors, a glue stick, and some old magazines.
To create a vision board, find words or images that represent the things your healthcare organization is working toward. These can be literal 1:1 representations like the words “Create A Provider Directory“ or abstract representations like an image of a camera to represent a focus on video production.
Vision boards are especially helpful if you’re a visual learner or if you want your goal-setting approach to be more free-form and exploration-based.
Example Vision Board For Healthcare Organizations
When putting together your vision board, you can be as artistic as you want. Whether you create a digital vision board or a physical one, let your creative side shine, like in this hypothetical board.
Source: CareContent
Make Goal Setting A Team Sport
Often when we think of New Year’s resolutions, we focus exclusively on ourselves. The mantra “New Year, New Me” puts the focus inward, and the goals we make tend to be all about us.
But when you’re setting goals for your organization, your team should be a part of that work, too. This can look like a workshop or time set aside during a meeting — or even a hands-on collage session.
How you bring your team into this process might depend on the size of your team, the kinds of goals you might want to set, or what approach to goal setting you plan to take. But no matter how you go about setting goals for your healthcare organization, your team’s expertise is invaluable.
