Goal Setting: Why Tracking Your Results Matters!

We all have goals, whether they are short-term or long-term, personal goals, or business goals. Goals can help propel us to a better and more ideal place. This could be as simple as walking 10,000 steps every day or shedding a few unwanted pounds.

The Importance of Goal Setting

But the secret to reaching them could all come down to the goal setting practices you follow.

A few simple concepts I have learned over the years have allowed me and our business to become better at goal setting.

OPA

The first one I learned 20+ years ago from Tony Robbins. This concept got my attention when I first learned about it, and I applied it to many goals in my life. It’s called OPA.

OPA represents:

• O-Outcome (What do you want?)
• P-Purpose (Why do you want it? Your ‘Why’ must be deeply compelling!!)
• A-Action (How will you get what you want?)

So many people don’t know exactly what they want. E.g. They might want to take their career to the next level. What does that mean exactly? More detail and clarity are needed.

From a business planning and goal setting perspective, I am a real fan of the work by John Doerr. I loved his book: “MEASURE WHAT MATTERS. How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKR.”

(I referenced his book in one of our X5 blogs in September. Click here to read that blog)

John uses a simple but compelling model more businesses could use to produce better results. Again, another great acronym is used to simplify the concept.

OKRs

The X5 Management team is gearing up for our annual Strategic Planning session, and we will embrace OKRs to help our business grow in the direction that we want to achieve. They provide critical focus and clarity to produce better results!

(Speaking of clarity, visit this post next to learn how focusing on the ABMs in sales helps you get the clarity you need for success)

They look something like this:

• Objectives: What is it that the business is trying to achieve?
• Key Results: They are how you will achieve the objectives!

(Read this post next to learn more about using Rule of 5 for reaching sales goals)

Top-line goals must be clearly understood

As Doerr states in his book, “Leaders must get across the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what.’ Their people need more than milestones for motivation. They are thirsting for meaning, to understand how their goals relate to the mission.”

Objectives and key results are the yin and yang of goal setting

Here’s another compelling statement from John Doerr that brings home this idea:

“Objectives are the stuff of inspiration and far horizons. Key results are more earthbound and metric-driven. They typically include hard numbers for one or more gauges; revenue growth, active users, quality safety, market share, customer engagement.”

What are you measuring? Does your business measure what matters?

While it’s ultimately about producing results, many critical things must be tracked and measured, but not everything needs to be tracked. Your team needs to decide!

The critical things your business measures and tracks will make the difference with overall business objectives and results in the year ahead.

I hope you found this blog of value and that it helps you apply greater clarity in your business goal setting and focusing on measuring what really matters!

If you need some outside help in this critical area, our team at X5 Management can assist your business with facilitating a Strategic Planning session. We would be pleased to have a complimentary

Discovery Meeting with you to determine how to potentially support your business growth. Contact us at info@x5management.com to schedule yours.

Before you go, I invite you to check out our NEW resources page, packed with valuable tools and content for your business.

Did you learn a lot about goal setting in this post? Here are three more posts to read next:

• How to Do Strategic Planning: 5 Simple Tips to Get Started
• 5 Tips to Enhance Leadership Listening (and Why It Matters)
• Ask Yourself…Why? In Sales and Service Goal Setting