“I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”
– Steve Jobs
Continued from part 1.
What is the best way to formulate achievable goals?
Congratulations! You’ve overcome your first challenge, you’ve started focusing on the wildly important goal. You’ve escaped the law of diminishing returns and are on your way to achieving more than before.
However, setting and improving your WIGs is not enough. Every WIG must have a clearly measurable goal with timelines for when to achieve what. In this way all teams are able to move forward with great clarity of goals and strategies set to achieve them.
So set SMART objectives:
S-pecific
M-easurable
A-ssignable
R-elevant
T-ime-based
How can leaders increase the likelihood of succeeding at their WIGs?
- Align your WIGs with company vision, mission and strategy.
- Work with key stakeholders to determine what 2 or 3 WIGs you will focus on achieving. Remember, every goal can’t be wildly important. So make sure that those chosen are worthy of focusing on more than others.
- Make your not-to-do list as big a priority as your to-do list. Share this with your team to add value and commitment to the things you’ve said yes to.
- Identify a clear starting and finishing line as well as a deadline for your WIGS. Use clear actionable language e.g. increase sales by 32% by June 21.
- Keep a record of your progress towards your goals. Use a visually compelling scoreboard to keep things interesting and easy to follow. Tools like Epic are a great place to start.
- Make sure every team member understands their role and how it is contributing to the overall business goals (engagement).
- Schedule meetings to check in, give status reports and chart ways forward on your success journeys.
- Celebrate your wins when WIGs are achieved. Then proceed to add the next one to the list.
How does a leader create and keep an execution scorecard?
- An effective execution scorecard should be designed to motivate your team to win at achieving your WIGs. It is FOR the players not against them.
- Keep it simple and as visual compelling as possible so it’s easy to follow, remember and not boring to look at.
- Assign 3 weekly commitments per member that will drive towards achieving goals. Here’s a great strategic tool you can use.
- Update the scorecard weekly so everyone knows who is winning and losing, include the lessons and commitments of the previous week.
- Review it and make new commitments for the coming week.
What would you say is the most vital in goal setting and execution?
Translating strategy from concepts to targets, specific finish lines with an intent to yield sustainable performance.
There has been great feedback from people who have used the 4DX principles to renew how they set and achieve goals but like every other method it requires discipline. These may seem simple enough, may be even common sense. However they are not common practice. If you have a method that works for your team then keep at it. If you are looking for new ways to set and achieve goals, this is a great place to start.
Try it out and modify it for what’s working best for your team’s needs. Focusing on the wildly important is about defining that greater goal and it is a discipline.