A business without goals is not optimised for success. In fact, I’d go as far to say that goal setting is one of the most important business skills leaders need to manage, and often one of the skills that is done really poorly.
Why should you bother to master what for many does not come naturally? The answer is simpler than you think. Goals direct and make use of time more efficiently, and they unlock ideas, knowledge, and learning that only get unlocked when the right goal is defined.
A full-time employee will work about 1,700 hours a year. How efficiently time is used and how effective that time is in terms of providing customer and business value depends on where the effort is directed and how the day-to-day is managed.
You always want employees to have clarity on which goals are being worked towards over a quarter. If they don’t they might work on irrelevant activities. You also want to inspire employees to give their all to a goal; this means supporting them in the right way. Examples of positive actions you can take to do this are:
- Offer a high level of autonomy of how a goal is achieved
- Help to remove blockers should they arise
- Provide praise and recognitions where and when it is due
Examples of negative behaviours good goal setting help you to avoid are:
- Micromanaging
- Making your new big idea or less important goals top of the priority list
- Spreading people too thinly by having too many goals
What does a good goal look like?
There are two popular ways to set business goals. SMART and Objectives and Key Results.
SMART is the simplest of these two goal-setting methods. The acronym SMART stands for:
S is for Specific
M is for Measurable
A is for Achievable
R is for Relevance
T is for Time-Bound
What SMART lacks, with the exception of the ‘S’ for specific, can be found in FAST goals.
F is for Frequently Discussed
A is for Ambitious
S is for Specific
T is for Transparent
If both of these methods were to be brought together, they would look very similar to the goal-setting method used by Google called OKR, which stands for Objectives and Key Results. In fact, it is OKRs that have been credited with Google’s x 10 growth rate. Exploring the OKR model can provide valuable insights into how organizations can effectively set and achieve objectives, fostering significant growth and success.
The reason why OKRs work is that it’s more than a goal format with SMART and FAST, or even KPIs. It’s a way of thinking about and working towards goals. OKRs are grounded as much in culture as process. You can read a guide to OKRs here. I’d encourage you to learn more about them as there is a good reason why most fast-growth companies use the framework; it helps you focus on and achieve growth.
Best next steps
It may sound too good to be true, but if you learn to set goals like Google and other fast-growth companies, you are more likely to improve revenue, profit, customer satisfaction and every other KPI you want to change.
Improvements rarely happen by chance and step-changes in performance certainly don’t. You plan them, focus resources and execute, week on week, month on month, and quarter on quarter.
I’ve shared with you the gateway to growth. I hope you learn more and walk through it.
