Learnings from our Technical Director: Top 3 Goals and Philosophies on Goal Setting

Johan Botha has worked with Haefele Software for five years, starting as Developer before moving to Practice Lead and now to Technical Director. His tenure at the company has seen him work with numerous individuals across multiple projects and teams. As part of Haefele’s leadership team, Johan has worn many hats, mentored many individuals, and contributed to projects big and small. 

Since evolving into the Technical Director role, Johan set several initial objectives for his new position to help elevate the organisation and his team members to greater heights. This blog post provides an overview of each goal and outlines Johan’s strategies for accomplishing them. 

1. Foster Relationships with the Team 

Objective: Upon assuming his new role, Johan recognised the importance of renewing relationships within his team and the larger organisation. While he had worked with many of the Haefele team members during his tenure as Practice Lead, his new position required a more strategic and holistic perspective, and many of his prior relationships needed to be nurtured. This helps build trust as a change of role could potentially mean a different relationship with the same person.  

As Technical Director, Johan understands the importance of collaboration, sharing ideas, offering constructive feedback, and working towards common goals. By fostering relationships within the team, it also allows leadership to work with team members on their career growth and development. This includes mentorship and guidance that can lead to new opportunities. It also helps to identify potential project issues and challenges early on and address them in a proactive manner. 

Approach: Johan focused on revitalising these relationships and developing deeper connections with team members to foster a more cohesive and collaborative work environment. His efforts were successful, resulting in a more productive and positive work atmosphere and a better understanding of the unique requirements of every team member. 

2. Ensure Company Relevance and Value in the Market 

Objective: As an outsourcing consultancy focused on software delivery, one of Johan’s goals was to ensure that Haefele Software remains relevant by producing valuable working software for our clients. The aim is to maintain a leading position among software companies in the countries in which Haefele operates and deliver incremental value using appropriate mechanisms for each project. 

Approach: This objective presented challenges due to global economic circumstances and the type of work that Haefele undertakes. Johan focused on identifying the factors that would deliver the most value to clients, identifying the types of clients and desired outputs, and upskilling Haefele’s own personnel through training and cross-pollination within teams. This strategy has helped bolster internal skills and maintain the company’s competitive edge. 

3. Identify Pathways to Take the Organisation to the Next Level 

Objective: Johan’s third objective was to determine how to elevate the organisation’s skill set to the next level. 

Approach: He focused on identifying the necessary skills required to unlock the trending struggles customers seem to run into or improve in specific areas, as well as creating more opportunities for personnel to learn new techniques and skills that will help the company move forward. The success of this approach is ongoing, but we have already seen growth and expansion within the organisation. 

Johan’s philosophy on goal setting

“My approach to goal setting can be understood with the following analogy. I don’t have a well-fleshed-out five-year plan, but instead, I know what mountain I’m walking towards. As I get closer to the mountain, I start to see the different paths I can take. I believe that the people within my team should all be walking toward the same mountain, but their paths will be different. As such, their individual goals should be brought into the greater team and company. This approach has been successful in achieving my initial goals, leading to a fruitful and fulfilling six months in my new role as Technical Director.”