You don’t achieve results by setting goals. You achieve them by what you do.
In the last 18 months, I have spoken to over 100 groups of managers, each group of around 20 people, at a global engineering company, regarding a multi-pronged, 2-year old initiative being driven by their CEO. My mandate within the substantial framework is to coach them to develop a mind-set that’s important for the long term success of their business.
I invariably start each discussion by asking if they believe this initiative is the most visible one in their company. “Yes”, they agree. I build it up further by asking them if they’ve signed the supporting signature campaign, prominently displayed at the reception in every facility, on white flex boards. “Yes”. Then I ask them what the 5 core elements of the program are. Almost always, I get complete silence!
On a separate occasion, in 2015, the Asia-Pacific leadership team of a technology company invited me to their APAC HQ in Singapore for a dialog on one of their priorities. They had the VP for Asia, country heads from as far and wide as Japan, Australia, China and the Middle-East, and the VP’s staff, in the room. This was the day after their 2-day AOP meeting.
I asked them “what is the one thing you want to achieve in 2015 that is more important than anything else?” They replied “revenue, enterprise business, partners, cloud based solutions and quality”. I said to them “I asked for one”. It took an hour of debate, and an intervention from the VP to decide that partnerships were it. Then I asked them “what’s the one thing you want to achieve with your partners that’s more important than anything else?” That took another hour.
The problem
This is the truth. You can try it in your workplace. If you ask 10 people what the top 3 goals of your company are, you should get 3 goals, stated crisply and accurately, but you’ll probably get several dozen pretty interesting answers instead.
Interestingly, there’s weighty research to back up this fact. Consider the graphic below. It has some revealing statistics from a survey administered by the Harris Polling Group some years ago. They asked several thousand US white collar workers a few simple questions. The results are truly revealing
You see, it’s one thing to say what your goals are, but it’s quite another to actually get them done. That’s why a bunch of great sounding plans whimper out again and again. Don’t get me wrong, I totally respect the effort managers make to communicate goals to teams. But the critical error is to leave it to team members to figure out what to do to achieve those goals. That’s where it ALWAYS goes wrong. It takes focus, engaged employees, and disciplined execution to achieve results. Just sticking a number on the wall and shouting from the roof won’t do!
How to tackle the problem
One example that comes to mind is the on-time performance of IndiGo Airlines. You may have your views on how they use time slots to manage on-time performance, but they do manage within those slots more than 80% of the time. More importantly, by promising and delivering “on-time”, they have won the highest passenger market share in India, achieving that position in their 6th year of operations. They have continued since to be on time, profitable, and having the highest market share!
Every employee in the company knows the most important thing they have to do to ensure their planes fly on time. Whether it’s the flight crew who schedule longer TAT’s, or cabin crew who have the cabin cleaned for the next flight even before the current flight lands, to the F&B managers who don’t take hot food on board, except stuff that can be mixed with hot water, everyone knows exactly what to do to ensure that planes leave on time. That’s focus, engagement, and discipline. They don’t just say they will be on time. They know, and equally importantly, do what it takes to get planes in the air on time.
Just to set a goal isn’t enough. It’s a good start, but it has to be backed by something concrete. That’s where the translation of goals into every day work comes in, but this is mostly left to chance, and to employees to figure out. The net result is people work very hard, but end up running around in all directions looking very busy and producing less than what they are expected to. It also leaves many managers very frustrated. But it is the job of the manager to oversee the actions their teams take. Unfortunately managers often lack a system to do this.
Employees have to see results of what they do frequently enough for them to stay engaged. If you keep reviewing end results, they’re always behind the curve, and that’ll lead to demotivation and disinterest, i.e., disengaged employees. It may be worthwhile to define smaller tasks that are predictive of goal achievement, achieving them periodically, and letting employees see success far more frequently than they do. The discipline and rigor to watch and change what works and what does not is often overlooked for simpler reviews that only consider achievement of goals.
This approach is likely to give managers more control, visibility and predictability over results. Employees get to see the results of their work regularly, and there are plenty of opportunities to course correct. So as a manager, instead of setting goals, and then hoping for the best, take control by getting your teams to focus not only on end results, but also on the regular actions that will get them there. Let them see and celebrate success, and give them loads of opportunities to course correct if things are not working. You will get better accountability and far greater control!
