Orienting to Results

View or download the printable version of the Quick Guide to Orienting to Results (PDF).

Groundbreaking discoveries and research, educated students, successful alumni, quality clinical care, better community – these are the results of fulfilling the University’s mission of research, teaching, and outreach. The steps described in this guide will allow you to approach the work you supervise in a way that most meaningfully contributes to the University’s mission.

Why is orienting to results important?

Orienting to results allows you to prioritize and focus on the most impactful work. As a supervisor, it also helps you to:

Define and clarify the purpose of your team
Align the work to support the unit/college strategic priorities
Find new ways to innovate by challenging the status quo
Keep your team engaged by developing their skills and capacity

How do I orient to results?

Orienting to results involves challenging your assumptions about your day-to-day work through reflection and conversations with your manager and your employees.

03. Challenge the Status-Quo

Assess how you spend your time

Having clarity about how you are spending your time and resources will help you decide what needs to improve, what needs to stay the same, and what needs to go away. To assess how you spend your time, track your time for a week, and consider:

What is your team spending their time on?
Are you spending time on things that align with your team’s purpose, priorities, and goals?
What are you spending your time on that is less meaningfully contributing to your team’s purpose, priorities, and goals compared to other work?

Question your assumptions

Understanding what you and your team are spending time on is one thing, but you’ll need the courage to change what’s not working. Take a look at how your team is spending time and consider:

What needs to be done really well or nearly perfectly? What can be done “well enough”?
What can you say “no” to? What work can you eliminate?
What low-impact work can you de-prioritize or re-assign?
What team or departmental norms or processes can you improve or eliminate?
Are you spending more time on what’s urgent instead of what’s important? Why are those things urgent?

04. Orient to Results

Set high standards

Setting high standards around performance and impact drives employee motivation and improves work outcomes. To establish clear expectations and set high standards, both for the team and individuals, consider:

What are the specific outcomes for the high-priority work?
How do you expect your employees’ contributions to impact high-priority results? What does that look like?
What are the specific skills, knowledge, and abilities that employees need to achieve these key results?
What are the expectations of how the team works together to achieve the key results?

Communicate your standards and expectations to your employees in team meetings or individual one-on-one check-ins.

*See the Leading Teams module for more information on establishing team expectations, roles and responsibilities, and more.

Foster urgency around priorities

Fostering a sense of urgency around critical priorities helps motivate and engage your team to drive results.

It’s tempting to focus on attending to day-to-day requests that demand immediate attention because the consequences for not addressing them are usually immediate. However, this may result in a constant “firefighting” mode, where immediate issues take up your time even if they are not critical, and you fail to focus on longer-term priorities that might not seem urgent now. To foster a sense of urgency around critical priorities, consider:

How will you set the tone about the work and explain “why” it is a priority now?
How will you address roadblocks and potential pushback?
How will you explain how your employees can contribute?
How will you create accountability on your team to make sure results are achieved?

*See the Quick Guide to Influencing for more on appealing to and inspiring others.
**See the Quick Guide to Accountability for more information about establishing accountability.

View or download the printable version of the Quick Guide to Orienting to Resul…

Service Areas

Supervisory Development Program

Topics

Driving Results Through Others

Resource Type

Quick Guide

Course Focus

Foundations

Related Resources for Supervisors

An Overview of Driving Results through Others (2:59), Video

Carrying on Mission-Critical Work in Difficult Times , Webinar

Carrying on Mission-Critical Work in Difficult Times ActionSheet, Template

Carrying on Mission-Critical Work in Difficult Times Podcast (41:32), Podcast

Delegate to Achieve and Empower, Webinar

Delegate to Achieve and Empower Podcast (49:42), Podcast

Delegate to Achieve and Empower Webinar (49:21), Webinar

Delegation, Quick Guide

Driving Action Through Accountability, Webinar

Driving Action through Accountability ActionSheet, Template

Driving Action Through Accountability Podcast (49:32), Podcast

Driving Results Through Others, Online Module

Establishing a Culture of Accountability, Quick Guide

Influencing, Quick Guide

Orienting to Results, Quick Guide

Orienting to Results Worksheet, Template

Planning for Results, Quick Guide

Supervising Undergraduate Students Podcast (51:57), Podcast

The Art of Influence, Webinar

The Art of Influence ActionSheet, Template

The Art of Influence Podcast (48:56), Podcast

Orienting to Results

Why is orienting to results important?

How do I orient to results?

Resource Type

Course Focus

Related Resources for Supervisors

Talent Strategy

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