Goals, goals, goals…
“New Year’s Resolutions…”
“SMART Goals…”
Specific,
Measurable,
Attainable,
Realistic and
Time-Based
I actually saw an article about “DUMB goals” a few weeks ago…
Doable
Uncompromised
Manageable
Beneficial
Then you read the study from Harvard that says that the people with written goals, research has shown, live materially more successful lives.
Everybody has their narrative about why they are important and how they need to be used, but HOW FAR DO YOU TAKE GOALS?
How much of a good thing, is a bad thing?
I am constantly trying to have goals.
I push my kids to set goals for the year… (Doesn’t usually work).
I believe in goals…
And, I find myself, specially at work, telling people… “ok, ENOUGH already with goal setting… let’s go to work.”
I find that too many people and companies are overly excited about goals…
We set TOO MANY of them.
We set them FOR THE WRONG reasons.
We make them TOO HARD TO MEASURE.
For example, we are working on our overall goals for 2015. Revenue and earnings are always the easy ones. We always know what those are and how to measure them.
So, then we talk about employees. We want some “goal / measurement” to make sure our employees are engaged & happy. So we turn to, “Retention of Employees”.
Clearly, we want satisfied and engaged employees, and we don’t want to lose them.
So, what is the GOAL?
We don’t want to lose ANY employees – so should the goal be 100% retention? Well, we know right away that we are almost certain not to succeed as you always seem to lose people every year for one reason or another. And, aren’t there some employees, we’d like to lose because they are not a good fit or under performers?
We rate our employees; 1 – Rock Star, 2 – Rock Solid or 3 – Improve or Work OUT. So, should the goal be 100% of 1’s and 2’s only? 98%
If we go based on previous years we lose about 8% per year but the vast majority of those are part time project managers that were lightly engaged, if at all to begin with.
So, if we make the goal 92% or 93% and we lose 5% of our 1’s and 2’s it would be a total failure.
Before long the executive team is running around in circles on the conversation, secondary conversations have begun off topic, and the focus is lost.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ALL OF THIS?
We read all over the place that “setting goals” are a good thing.
I would argue that “setting goals that LEAD TO SPECIFIC ACTION that FITS INTO THE STRATEGY” is the “good” thing.
Truth is that we could get retention much higher by paying people way above market value. But, that would not allow us to deliver our profitability goals and would likely not be sustainable. So is 100% retention REALLY A GOAL we are committed to?
Business is an on-going balance.
Goals must reflect that balance to be actionable.
1. We want our employees to BE valued.
2. We want ENGAGED employees.
3. We want ACCOUNTABLE employees.
4. And, we DON’T WANT TO LOSE our 1’s and 2’s employees.
Those are all our “wants”.
Ultimately, the behavior we want is to support those things.
For those 4 things to happen; all employees really should have written plans, frequent conversations, we want to pay them adequately, we want to respond quickly and constructively and caringly when they bring up issues.
So, what is the goal? What do we measure?
There is no right or wrong answer, but having the conversation of the above is probably more valuable than picking a number and placing it on some board.
I do think that retention of 1’s and 2’s is a relevant metric, but what really is the difference if we get 97% or 98% or 99%? If we are doing the best that we can and responding well and caringly? Who should be to blame? What should we do different?
How important is it to have goals, versus to have the conversation on-going… “what employees seem unhappy?”, “what employees have expressed dissatisfaction with the work or compensation?”, “have we responded quickly?”, “what employees are under-appreciated rock stars?”… those are conversations that all drive toward our “want”.
Should the goal be to have an active conversation monthly at the exec meeting?
My point is that:
1. There is no simple answer. The conversations over time become richer. Our understanding and our systems over time become richer, and as our systems and understanding evolve, we can choose metrics from our progress that are good goals.
2. Good consolidaded, meaningful goals… take time. And, if you want them to be measurable, they take even more time.
3. While measurable is ideal, effective goals, specially for young organizations don’t have to be measurable.
I am always trying to get my boys to set SOME goal… only because I want them deliberately reaching for something.
I want them to adjust their behavior based on a preset objective.
I think that is a healthy way to live.
I want to be “stronger”, so maybe I set a number of push ups I want to do in a row by a certain date.
I want to do well in school, so maybe you set a set of grades that you want to achieve.
I want to have fun, so you make it a point to take the initiative to set up a social event at least once per month, or you agree you will participate in the big school social activities.
Goals are great, but we get carried away with them.
It’s a sign of youth and immaturity. What amazes me is that grown people, seasoned professionals make this mistake over and over again.
We all want a dashboard. Because we all want to be that clear about the key metrics that tell us if we are “on track” or not. But, to know if you are on track, you need to know what “off track” and “on track” looks like. And, you need to have the infrastructure in place to systemically tell the difference.
It’s ok if your dashboard is initially NOT real time, but manually done once per month or once per week.
The most valuable part of goal setting is the thinking and the conversation that goes into it in the first place.
Too often, we agree on a goal, just so that we can have something to graph, but we fail to ask the fundamental questions…
1. How will this metric / goal make us behave differently?
2. What decisions will we make if it is too high or too low?
3. What questions will we ask if this goal / metric is trending in the wrong direction?
4. How many goals can we realistically be measuring at once?
Regarding employee retention, I think the metric and goal that we should set is once per year look at our employee survey. We should look at the % of the company that participated (because I believe engaged employees believe in their companies and believe in the efforts to make them better)… and thus the company we want to be has more and more participation on the survey year over year.
I think we should look at retention of 1’s and 2’s but not necessarily set a goal, but categorize the reasons for departure. And, we should agree what reasons do we want a ZERO % on. We don’t want to lose anyone because they didn’t like their manager, or because we didn’t respond quickly enough to their request for help.
Aside from that, its business as usual. Our biggest challenges are the variability in our workload which causes big peaks and valleys of work. And, we are actively working to make that better over time. That is why we made the acquisition this past year. We are taking that very seriously, but it will take years to fully execute on the strategy of diversifying our revenue. A more balanced and predictable workload, I believe, is a major factor in retaining our top talent long term. And, we are working on that, and no matter what goal we set for 2015, we are going to be working on that.
Don’t expect the conversations to be easy, but appreciate that its in the conversations where the value is. In the figuring out of what matters and what doesn’t, even if you can’t measure.
I have seen too many companies measuring all kinds of stuff and MISSING the gist of what is important. I have fired companies that were fantastic at setting specific goals. It’s not about setting measurable goals, its about delivering results.
Yes, I want to be a mature company with crystal clear goals set on a real time dashboard, and I also want to be mature enough to realize that it doesn’t happen over time.
If your team was designing a car for the first time, how many metrics would they put on the dashboard?
To me, setting good, effective, measurable clear goals is really difficult because it really requires a rich understanding of your business and life. And, in order to do that, you have to accept the limitations of youth, you have to accept the limitations of time, and you have to understand the essence of what makes you tick… and most companies and most people aren’t quite at a place to do that…
Take it step by step…
Don't lose yourself in goals... spend time thinking about WHAT you want, and WHAT could possibly help you modify behavior as you go...
And set a realistic goals, for goal setting ;-)
Yours in harmony,
Nestor