Dear Friends and Colleagues:

It’s that time of year when we are assessing major spring cleaning needs at home as well as spending time wrapping up annual reports highlighting our organization’s previous year of activities and accomplishments. Compiling annual reports is  often a struggle, but on the upside, can serve as a catalyst for health administrators to take stock of  leadership successes and challenges during the past year. With all the chaos and complexity surrounding the daily life of a health administrator, we can be hard pressed at times to identify accomplishments of our organizations and what impact, if any, our leadership had.  Regularly setting goals is one way to help leaders measure their achievements. Having a vibrant multi-year agency strategic plan seems to makes that process even easier because overarching organizational goals, objectives and strategies for implementation are contained therein.

We have all heard the saying, “People who write down their goals usually achieve them.” As a local health department administrator, I firmly believe this exercise works! Annual goal setting has helped me keep on task with steering my organization’s direction and keeping the “big picture” in front of me for the upcoming year. The presence of a multi-year agency strategic plan outlines agency priorities and helps me annually synchronize my goals with the plan. Keeping my annual goals posted in plain view of my workstation and reviewing them periodically helps guide the focus of my work and is critical in measuring success and identifying challenges of my leadership activities. Some examples of annual goals I have undertaken include: 1) Assure all professional staff receive training on basic quality improvement tools, 2) Conduct a comprehensive community health needs assessment with community partners and constituents,  and 3) Evaluate the need for a different agency structure to accomplish our mission.

Ideally, annual goals should be shared with one’s governing board and staff so that others in the organization know what leadership is striving to accomplish in the defined time period. Many organizations use goal setting and related achievements as an adjunct to performance reviews and incentive for pay raises. Another solid reason to set measureable goals!

Governing board members are keenly interested in supporting achievement of a leader’s annual goals because if you succeed, they succeed and ultimately, your organization succeeds.  Are there times when your goals don’t get met? Of course! The 2009 H1N1 outbreak put many health administrators’ goals on the back burner, and required creation of new goals to appropriately redirect the focus and energy of the organization.  Sometimes those crisis driven goals are the underpinning of shining achievements for your organization and great material for those annual reports you struggle with.

Local Health Departments will be required to produce an agency strategic plan as part of the national voluntary accreditation process. If your organization doesn’t have one, it may be time to add that item to your next list of goals!

Warm Regards,
 
Gretchen Sampson RN MPH
Chair