Seeing Potential Problems: Use these examples for setting employee performance goals. Help your employees master this skill with 5 fresh ideas that drive change.

Seeing Potential Problems is the ability to structure the current situations and identify developments that could cause problems in the future.

Seeing Potential Problems: Set Goals for your Employees. Here are some examples:

  • Break projects into manageable chunks with each chunk spaced enough to give one time to make changes before the final delivery
  • Do quality and proactive risk management throughout, and avoid immediate reaction to changes
  • Use collaborative task tracking software in order to spot employees who are not reporting their progress or who are behind schedule
  • Be able to relate to each team member in order to gain team's trust and increase their effort in the project
  • Give advance notice when the company rolls out new features or launches new initiatives or applications
  • Conduct neutral and honest discussions in order to allow everyone involved make solid contributions
  • Learn from past mistakes; look at past missteps and how they were solved to help solve future problems
  • Look for people who have been involved in problem-solving in the past in order to ask for advice on how to prevent future problems
  • Encourage collaboration; get input from outside own department in order to uncover possible future problems
  • Try to imagine possible outcomes of a particular decision and potential problems that might ensue from it

Seeing Potential Problems: Improve and master this core skill with these ideas

  • Predict - To be proactive, you must develop foresight first. Learning to anticipate problems and events is a capacity for active people and should be essential for every employee you hire. Understanding how things work, recognizing the regular routines and looking out for problems should be a daily cycle that exists in your business. Do not allow complacency in your business, allowing imagination to anticipate future outcomes. Don't expect the past will be an accurate predictor of the future, use logic and creativity and work with what you have got. Proactive people are always on their toes coming up with multiple scenarios on how events can unfold.
  • Prevent - Preventing problems that others would only claim unavoidable is vital to every business. Proactive people have the ability to foresee potential obstacles and work towards overcoming them before the barriers turn into concrete roadblocks. Do not get caught up in the feeling of powerlessness when it comes to preventing problems from happening. Take control and confront any challenge head on before they grow into large overwhelming problems. Teach every one of your employees to report any challenge that they face before it grows into a big problem to help tackle it in its early stages.
  • Plan - Planning for the future is highly relevant to any business. Do not just dwell in the here and now instead look ahead and plan for long-term consequences. Bring the future into the present and start working towards it to ensure success in the days to come. For the best decisions to be made and followed up, you must know where you have come from, where you are and where you want to go. These three fundamental questions must be answered clearly with no partiality.
  • Participate - Proactive people are active participants who do not stand aside and observe what others are doing. They stay involved, taking the initiative and being part of the solution. Recognizing that you are only a piece of the entire team to influence others by your actions keeps you alert and focused. Learning to work with others not as a commander but as a contributor is a great essential in working with others. Be a contributor and participate in what you are asked to do.
  • Perform - Performing means taking timely efficient action and willing to do it now. Procrastination is an enemy of performance and is not allowed in any business. Taking ownership of your performance and holding yourself accountable is the right way to stay focused. Take care, thoughtful steps to choose the appropriate path and guard against reacting impulsively to your environment.

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