The Power of Goals

Recently, I was asked to give a workshop to a team to improve their effectiveness. Thankfully the task was presented to me with a lot of latitude as to how to do it, so I started by talking to members of the team. Quite soon, I came to the conclusion that the best way to use the time would be to focus on goals.

The team certainly had other challenges besides clarity of goal, as would be true of most teams. Trust within the team was mixed, there were some absent skills and some behaviours present that damaged performance. The structure of the team was not ideal, nor was its processes, and the interfaces with clients, suppliers and others could have been improved.

But many of the challenges above would have been difficult to tackle in a short time. People can change, but only slowly and with a lot of help. Many team difficulties lay outside of their control. And the simpler things to fix, like meeting protocols, would not have had a significant affect on performance.

Goals, however, can be very powerful, and are not difficult to put in place, so they seemed a good area for the workshop. I read up lots of material, formed my own judgments, and built a workshop around the theme.

It is not difficult to see how goals are often a good thing. A team only needs a couple of things to be considered a team: a common goal and some opportunity to deliver it. If the goal is not clear, the effectiveness is bound to be limited.

With well-defined goals, a team can unify. It can prioritise, at team and individual level. It has a framework to help in resolving disputes. It has something it can commit to, again as a team and as individuals supporting to a leader. It has something to measure progress. And it can celebrate success.

This is all pretty obvious. My research discovered a claim that 80% of problems within a team stem from a lack of clear goals that everyone is committed to.

Then there was another research finding. Seemingly 80-85% of us have not defined personal goals. And only 3% of us have actually written them down. Seemingly, the 3% ends up earning five times as much as the middle group, and ten times as much as the goal-free majority.

When I read that, the skeptic inside me came alive. Firstly, there is probably some cause and effect issue here. High earners probably have the opportunity for plenty of training, personal coaches, and also demanding bosses. Also, who is to say that high earnings are a good proxy for success or happiness? We cannot conclude that the diligent 3% are happy, can we?

Anyway, putting that to one side, I think most of us can agree the logic that setting goals is a worthwhile thing to do. So for me the interesting question becomes – why don’t we? What stops us?

Like many of our failings, probably the biggest cause for a lack of goal setting is fear or denial. Setting goals means facing up to reality. Perhaps we have less influence than we pretend. Perhaps we don’t want to face the yawning gap between the most we can reasonably aspire to and the least we would not feel ashamed of. Perhaps, deep down, we know that there are unresolved issues with a life partner or teammates that would be exposed by the exercise. Perhaps we are just too depressed to look forward at all.

None of these reasons are to be glossed over – I know from my own experience that confronting deep issues can lead to gut-wrenching outcomes – but of course they only strengthen the case for goals. Every day of denial makes the ultimate recovery tougher.

Then there are arguments about loss of flexibility. Many of us like to keep our options open, especially those of us with a P in our Myers Briggs profile. Team leaders also can be averse to sharing goals since they might equate the activity with a loss of power or control. After all, if we don’t set goals, we can change our priorities as we wish and can expect subordinates to do the same. And we fear that we will lose our credibility if we miss targets or keep changing them.

Again, there is some seriousness to these objections. The main way to deal with them is to understand that goals are there to be changed, perhaps even frequently. At any point, a stated goal is our best guess at where a sensible target lies. External factors can change, so can internal ones, and goals should change with them. There is nothing worse than a stated goal that everyone can see has become unattainable – that does suck credibility. But a regular process of reviewing goals actually builds credibility if done well. It also helps partners and subordinates buy in and understand what lies behind the goals, enabling stronger accountability, prioritization and decision-making. So this kind of objection should also be resisted and overcome, along with an understanding about a flexible process for review.

Another block of reasons to avoid goals has arisen from their abuse. The worst examples come from performance related pay, led by my (not) good friends in finance. Skewed goals create skewed incentives and unearned rewards. This has percolated outwards and downwards. Of course the best way to get a good performance review is to achieve a set of soft targets, or even to avoid real targets at all beyond “supporting”, “enabling” or the like. We have all seen it, by governments, dictators, CEO’s and humble bosses, and it has made us suspicious and cynical.

We can probably all see that abuse by others does not invalidate a good principle. But then comes the real problem. We often have surrendered power over our own goal setting to the corporate monster, and thrown away a lot of its benefits by doing so.

Most of us equate goal setting with our company annual target setting exercise. I do not argue against these, indeed they are great, as long as the abusers are kept away. But by their nature, they tend to be negotiations, and to follow too much of a formula.

The negotiation aspect can be overcome by a good line manager and a reasonable process. The real issue is that a formal process is so inflexible. It ties everyone to a timetable, usually an annual phasing with an often overlooked mid year review. And it imposes all sorts of rules, from the number of goals to their nature to the inclusion of a whole shopping list current corporate fads.

A whole industry has shot up around designing such inflexible processes. Kaplan and others have promoted the balanced scorecard, a good thing but not a panacea. Someone came up with the acronym SMART (for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) to try to improve goals, again a good thing but not always easy or even sensible.

If we are in a corporation, we need to comply with the set process. But that should not stop us working on goals outside that process too (though if we are honest there should always be an explicit link). If you lead a team, think about what makes sense for that team, and apply it.

Often good goals come in three distinct time horizons. There should be something that looks like a vision, maybe for a year or two ahead. There should be short list of key definitions of success for a time maybe 2-4 months ahead. And there should be a longer list, more like an action list, with a horizon of a week or two. Each should be linked to the other, and each reviewed and amended by a clear process. Maybe your team only needs two horizons (or four) or should have horizons nearer or further away – so be it, that is the point, make it work for you.

So reclaim goals for yourself. Feed the corporate monster but don’t then think that finishes the task. Suspend your cynicism. Understand that the flexibility of a lack of goals is a chimera. And be ready to face up to fear or denial.

Finally, remember that your work is only a small part of your life, and should only represent a small share of your goals. Personal goals, especially non-work related ones, are very powerful. I wrote some down as I was turning fifty. I still remember them and refer to them every so often. But it is time for a review.

My guess is that you would benefit from a personal goal-setting exercise, or at least a review, as well. So do it. Goal number one for the shortest horizon – set goals and write them down. Once you’ve made your millions in the ranks of that 3%, don’t forget it was me who set you on your way!