By Ward Morrison, President, Motto Franchising, LLC
Businesses thrive on goals. The evolution of your team’s success depends on designing objectives and clear initiative communication. In fact, a study conducted by Dominican University of California found significant performance increases in those who committed established goals to writing vs those who merely thought about their future achievements. This example reminds me of my time in track and field as a high schooler. My main event was pole vaulting and as a freshman I was stuck at an 11-foot jump. I thought almost endlessly about how I could optimize my technique and condition to overcome this plateau, but nothing worked. I practiced daily, but still, 11 feet was my limit. The following year – in my boundless sophomore wisdom – I drafted a plan in the margins of my history notes. The top line read, “13-foot jump by summer”. I outlined my plan and stuck to it. That year, I successfully made a 13-foot vault and improved rapidly from that point on.
Whether you lead a staff of hundreds, a small team of just a few or plan to execute personal improvement, goal setting may lead you to your highest jump yet.
The Rule of 3
Goal creation can be exciting. You may find yourself dreaming of the countless achievements you foresee for 2020. My first piece of advice is to home in on 3 or fewer business goals for the year. Of course, as you increase the number of goals you set, you innately dilute the energy you can commit to each. By minimizing your yearly objectives, you can dedicate the necessary vigor, focus, and enthusiasm to each one.
Historically, the number 3 has played an influential role in communications. You’ll notice the rule of 3 in the inalienable rights listed in the United States’ Declaration of Independence, the beginning/middle/end structure of simple stories and even in the triple repeat of a cornerstone joke in a comedy set. The prevalence of this little number is thought to be an artifact of the human affinity toward patterns. Since 3 is the smallest number that creates a pattern, each item is easy to remember and pleasing to the human mind.
If you lead a team of employees, the “stickiness” of your goals is imperative. That is, each employee can remember each goal with ease. This is where you can use the rule of 3 to your advantage. In essence, you’ve created a simplified pattern of initiatives for each team member to keep at the forefront of their minds. Three goals are much easier to commit to memory than four or – if you subscribe to the rule of three – even two.
While you don’t want to overextend yourself or your staff as you set initiatives for the year, remember that you can expand the scope of each goal via execution subsets. If, for example, you have a sales goal, you’ll have a sub-goal for your sales team to reach your identified number. Then, you might also have a sub-goal for your marketing team to create new sales assets that will support the year’s sales efforts while your events team may have the sub-goal of mounting a set number of sales events for the year. Through these goal subsets, you can engage the entirety of your team in each of your yearly initiatives.
Choosing the Right Business Goals
I recommend selecting one goal for each of three different categories in order to maximize your year’s success.
1. Revenue Goal
Most businesses win or lose on revenue production. Keep yourself and your team focused on the bottom line by crafting a revenue goal each year. This revenue target can often benefit from inclusion of three levels. I like to call the first level “budget” or your minimum threshold. This is the amount your company needs to reach in order to function well and achieving it should be noted but not necessarily rewarded. The next level will be your “target” which will pinpoint a celebratory milestone for your staff. Your final level is your “stretch” goal. This number will be very hard to reach, but if it is reached, be sure to reward your team generously.
In order to identify each of the revenue milestones, I recommend employing a bottom-up approach. Speak with each of your salespeople (or whoever directly impacts your revenue production) to see how many sales they think they can close in the coming year. Some may sandbag their answers while others may overshoot. Your job is to determine the happy medium that will become your “target” goal. Your “stretch” goal will then be above the “target” and the “budget” goal is determined by financial analysis of your operations.
2. Issue Resolution
Focus one goal on relieving a bottle neck. Ask your department heads about what can create more efficiency or optimize headcount and go from there. Since Motto Franchising, LLC handles large volumes of on-boarding, we incorporated a technology to streamline this process in 2019 and were able to free-up valuable employee time, thus optimizing their contribution to the business.
3. Something Flashy
Incorporating a goal that will ignite a spark in your employees can help drive success for the coming year. This can be the trickiest goal to pinpoint since it can include a wide array of options. To identify a new and exciting goal, I suggest holding brainstorm sessions with your leadership team and guiding the discussion toward what’s new and cutting-edge. Narrow ideas by considering whether each item would drive growth, is financially sound, may be able to solve a root issue in the industry or has the potential to energize your staff.
The Magic is in the Follow Up
Remember the Dominican University of California study I mentioned earlier? The same research identified an even more significant increase in goal completion among people who reported their progress to a friend, colleague, etc. as compared to those who wrote their goals down but didn’t report at all. You can create polished, exciting, motivating business goals, but if you don’t facilitate follow-up, you might be wasting your time. When you craft each initiative, build-in checkpoints throughout the year. Update your staff and help them celebrate small wins and troubleshoot disappointing hurdles often. My leadership team meets with each person in their department monthly to check in on goal and task progress, and to see how they can be of help to their team.
Your Goal as a Leader
As a business leader, your main goal is to guide your staff toward success. The research indicates that planning targets and facilitating progress reporting can be some of your most useful tools to this end. Just like I discovered as a high school pole vaulter, moving a desired outcome from a daydream to a personal contract can lead you to new heights. Providing your staff with these best practices in goal setting techniques can enhance the performance of everyone on your team.
Published on January 10, 2020
