I was once given a very valuable piece of advice – and it had nothing to do with running a company or a team. It was strictly sporting advice.
Look where you are going, because you will end up where you are looking.
My sport is horse riding. I ride and show-jump as a hobby. In my case, things usually went like this: I would build up speed, find a good canter before the first fence and ride at it with determination. Then, still staring at that first fence on the course, it would turn out that the distance was wrong, I would knock the first rail and be annoyed that I had spoiled the whole plan right at the start. But I did not give up: I would fix my eyes on the next fence and keep fighting. The trouble was that by the time I had worked out where the second fence was, pulled myself together after the botched first one and thought about what I was actually supposed to do, the distance to the second was wrong again. The fact that I got round those courses with only two or three rails down was more to the horse’s credit than to my skill.
It was only when I realised that all along I had been looking in the wrong place – too close, at the problem rather than the solution, at the result rather than the route that was supposed to take me there – that I was able to ride my rounds more consciously. And in business it is exactly the same!
This principle, simple as it is, matters enormously. It is not about focusing solely on the obstacle directly in front of us. That obstacle should have been planned for long ago. The key is to look further: at the next point, the next obstacle, the whole route. That is how we keep the right trajectory and do not lose sight of the final goal. Mistakes along the way will always happen; the only question is how we deal with them and whether we keep up the pace.
The same principle applies to management. A manager cannot focus only on current problems. They need a vision and a plan, and they need to pursue it consistently, keeping their eyes on the goals they want to achieve. It is also their job to analyse the environment and watch what is happening on the market. Maybe someone has just walked onto the course, or a dog has run in, and the route has to change – which does not mean changing the goal. And it is true that everyone knows this and everyone can talk about it. Most managers even have an idea of how to manage goals in a company, how to set them well and how to see them through. So why is it so hard?
The art lies in discipline, and discipline is like a muscle: it has to be trained.
There are many goal management methodologies on the market for managers, and every one of them makes perfect sense. I do not feel I am the right person to judge whether OKRs are better than GTD, or 4DX better than Hoshin Kanri. As in life, it probably depends. They are all similar, because they rest on the same assumption and the same steps: the foundation of modern motivation theory, autonomy. In practice this means: as a manager, show where you are all going; let your people say which route they will take and in what order they will clear the obstacles; be with them, support them and help them, give them the tools and the space to take responsibility; be their biggest fan, but help when they need it. Best of all, follow your round together, regularly, because that gives you the feeling that you know how you are doing, where you are against the plan and how far it is to the win!
Personally, my favourite methodology, which I introduced in both companies I have managed, is 4DX by Franklin Covey. These are the 4 Disciplines of Execution, a methodology that focuses on four key elements:
1. Lag measures
These are the final results we want to achieve. They are the outcome of our actions, for example an X% increase in sales in a given quarter.
2. Lead measures
These are the everyday, smaller actions that lead us to the lag measures. They are under our direct control, for example the number of calls made to potential clients each day.
3. Scoreboard
A visual tool that allows progress towards both lag and lead measures to be tracked on an ongoing basis. The scoreboard should be simple, legible and available to the whole team. Its purpose is to motivate and build engagement.
4. Cadence of accountability
Regular, short team meetings during which progress is discussed, obstacles are identified and decisions about further action are taken. The key is that employees account for their own tasks rather than being held to account by the manager.
I know from experience that the hardest part is always getting started, because you have to answer what a classic called “the damn important question”. In this case it is:
Which single action has the greatest impact on achieving a given result?
Not five different actions, not ten indicators and fifteen supporting KPIs. No! Two or three things at most. And that really is the difficulty. For example, at Mail Boxes we were dealing with a company that was not recognised on the market; customers searched for services online, and we did not rank well. We had to choose two actions that would get the business moving and attract customers. Together with the Marketing Manager at the time (a wonderful one, by the way, and also a Joanna), we decided on weekly publication of content on the website, written specifically for SEO around selected long-tail phrases. The effect? Our ranking jumped in no time: after three months we could see a rise of several dozen positions, and after six months there were phrases for which we were number one on Google!
What was the manager’s role in all this, in this case mine? To let smarter people do their job, to support them in discipline and regularity, to be in one team with them and to be their most faithful fan! To give them “disciplined” autonomy in what they did and to track together what made sense. For us those SEO articles were precisely the lead measure; the result came by itself, and faster than we had thought.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution are only one of many approaches. Other methodologies that can help in different contexts are also worth mentioning. And I sincerely encourage you to try different ones, starting with the simplest!
SMART
This popular, and currently underrated, method assumes that goals should be: Specific, Measurable, Achievable (or Ambitious), Relevant and Time-bound. It really works! So let us not dismiss good old SMART.
OKR (Objectives and Key Results)
A methodology popularised by Google, based on defining ambitious Objectives and measurable Key Results that show whether the objective has been achieved. Sound familiar? It should!
Hoshin Kanri
A Japanese strategic planning method that involves the whole team in setting and achieving goals. Hoshin Kanri emphasises cascading goals from the top of the organisation downwards and continuous improvement. No great secrets here either, although Hoshin Kanri says explicitly that improvement is a continuous process and that changes and adjustments along the way are necessary. Elsewhere one can get the impression that once goals are set, they are carved in stone.
To close this topic – although it is far from exhausted – it is worth remembering that effective goal management is a team game. The manager acts as the link between the organisation’s strategic goals and the team’s daily tasks. The manager must:
- Have a clear vision. Understand where the company is heading and which goals are key to its success.
- Communicate the goals. Convey the vision and goals to the team in a clear and understandable way.
- Support and motivate. Help employees achieve their goals, remove obstacles and inspire action.
- Monitor progress. Track progress regularly and correct course if necessary.
Employees, in turn, concentrate on the lead measures: the everyday small steps that bring them closer to the goal. The manager, however, has to be aware of these measures and be able to control them, to make sure the team is moving in the right direction. With daily work like that, success is almost inevitable. Isn’t it?
