I think the biggest reason that people, and companies, don’t achieve goals is that they forget to think through HOW the goal will be achieved.
Examples best illustrate the limited thinking we do when it comes to planning how we will accomplish our goals.
When a person sets this goal, if you ask them how they will lose 10 pounds by July 1st they will probably tell you they are going to eat less and/or exercise more. A key result might be to eat 400 calories less a day. Another key result might be to exercise 5 days a week.
But does that dig deep enough to ensure success? How will they exercise more? The person needs to set aside more time in their day to exercise, they may need to get a gym membership or buy a new pair of running shoes. They may need a fitness buddy. They may need to coordinate schedules with their partner to watch the kids during their exercise time.
And how much exercise needs to be done in order to achieve the target date of July 1st? There are a lot of things that have to happen in order to make “more exercise” feasible and to map it to the time-bound goal of July 1st. But most goal planning stops short at “exercise more”.
If someone has this goal, they will probably set off to optimize ’some’ website pages to be indexed better in organic search and secure some backlinks. Maybe a key result for this objective is to get 40 backlinks to the site. Another key result for this is to improve organic search rankings by 6 places on 3 key terms.
But does that tell you how they will do that? No. It tells you what they will attempt to accomplish, but it doesn’t tell you how.
It’s not that you want to measure activities, but without a specific plan of what activities have to happen, the goal is unlikely to be achieved. Without thinking through how, it’s likely that somewhere along the way, execution will falter, and the goal will not be achieved. Because the person who needs to achieve this goal may have 3 other goals to achieve and when you add up everything they have to do in order to execute against the goal, it’s far more than one person can do in a quarter.
People who set goals rarely think through the “how” part with enough specificity. Often, when I ask someone how they will achieve a goal they set, they give me a blank stare and metaphorically scratch their heads. Or they give me a non-answer. This happens sometimes to me when I ask myself how I am going to achieve a goal, too, so I promise I’m not pointing fingers!
Every goal needs a set of associated tactics and initiatives that define what needs to be done to achieve it. The easiest way to uncover this is to keep asking how something will be achieved until you get to the root of what needs to be done.
Thinking through how a goal will be achieved actually reveals if the goal is achievable. It can also reveal that too many goals have been set (there are not enough resources and time to execute everything needed to achieve the goal) or strategic and tactical gaps in your organization.
Once you have identified Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), set aside time to plan the execution. It really just starts with the question, “How will we do this?”
The first answer will probably be pretty surface and simple. But you just keep asking yourselves “How” until you’ve constructed a plan you can execute against.
When you initially start to ask the “how?” question, you may get a lot of frustrated, exhausted, and confused reactions. If your team hasn't developed the execution muscle, this will feel hard. It will feel like you are being too granular or circular. You will ask “How?” one more time, and they will say, “I just told you how!” and throw up their arms in the air.
That’s all normal, and it’s part of building a culture of execution. Go slowly, don’t press too hard, but also don’t back off at the first hint of flustered resistance. Be gentle in your “how” inquiry with your team and with yourself.