Have Fun Tracking Your Goals - Play BINGO for Achievement
Many times in our retail environment you come across different ideas to help motivate store teams to connect them to new projects or specific metrics in the business. One of those ideas I have seen over the years is to create a BINGO card for different tasks or achievements that associates can ‘check off’ when they achieve those levels or complete the tasks. I started to think about this concept and how it might relate to goals and staying on track across periods of time.One of the more difficult components of goals is breaking the big items into smaller items. Additionally, it can be hard to recall the individual pieces of goals that you want or need to complete. And finally, being able to see progress along the way can help encourage people to continue working on their goals. The idea of a ‘game board’ may be a solution for each of these and help keep you connected to what you have set out to achieve in the year ahead.
Use it for the critical steps of a larger goal
One idea for using the ‘game card’ could be to write the word GOALS across the top and use each letter to represent one bigger goal you have for a quarter (if you are doing SPRINTS) or for the year. Within that column, write five smaller tasks that go along with that goal. As you achieve those pieces, update your game board until you have a BINGO. The great thing is you can see your progress across all five goals at the same time. You can be working on multiple pieces and crossing them off as you go to always know where you are.
Use it for smaller to-dos for a period of time
If you don’t want to tie each column to a specific goal, you can use the ‘game card’ for smaller tasks that you want to accomplish for a given period of time. This could be for a month or a quarter to keep those critical tasks top of mind and visible. You continue to see the progress you’re making throughout the time frame and can plan accordingly based on the remaining tasks and resources or time you have available.
Use it for different areas of your life
Use each of the columns for different aspects of your life and what you want to accomplish in each of those areas. You could use categories such as business, personal, family, hobbies, development, or travel. I think this could be a fun way to encourage yourself throughout the year to ‘check off’ different achievements you establish at the start of the year. Bonus points if you can come up with a great acronym to use as your column headers.
Use it with your team
I mentioned many stores use BINGO as a way to engage their team around key metrics. You can use this thought process as well for a team and the important milestones you want to reach over the course of a quarter or several months. I have used this idea myself to create friendly competitions among leaders for key metrics, but I especially like the idea of using this to establish and team goals for things beyond just financial metrics. You can set goals around people and how many associates get promoted, or for when all stores complete a specific task. Perhaps you have some training or development objectives you can achieve as a group and mark that on your ‘game card.’ Anything is possible, but it connects everyone together and can be an excellent way to have fun and create engagement at the same time.There are endless possibilities when you think creatively about how you can keep your goals visible each day and see the progress you are making. Creating a BINGO board is just one option. Goal setting and more importantly, goal completion doesn’t always have to be so serious you can’t have fun with it.What creative ideas do you have in tracking your goal accomplishments? Share your ideas in the comments section.Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills. JOIN NOW!No spam ever - just leadership goodness.