Improving Organizational Alignment - A Goal

This is the second in a series of posts on "Organizational Alignment" I've put together to share lessons and observations from my 20+ year career across multiple products, industries and companies. I share this in hopes of helping others better understand the dynamics in their organizations and what can be done to improve them.

This one is going to sound really obvious, but I've also found that it trips a lot of organizations up. Merriam-Webster defines a goal as:

the end toward which effort is directed

Which also makes sense when it comes to sports, as the goal (whether it's soccer, hockey, basketball, or any number of sports...or the "goal line" or "field goal" in football) is to accomplish a task (often putting an object in a net) more times than your opponent. But in these sports, there are no style points...you may want to run faster, be stronger, complete more passes, or any number of other tasks that may help you towards those goals, but they don't matter much if the goals are not achieved.

That's the first part of our goal: a meaningful end.

If you want to embrace some of those attributes that may not necessarily be that outcome, those are great for mission or culture statements, but really should be left out of goals.

The second pitfall I see is in clearly defining that meaning. Sports goals are easy, as they are well defined and structured. However, lots of other goals can seem clear, but really not painting the full picture.

Have you ever told someone or been told that they were "going to take up running"? You might nod in appreciation, but you'd still have no idea what they set out to do. Are they sprinting? Aiming for their first 5k? Trying to run a marathon?

And sometimes, these take time to come together and can evolve. When I "took up running", it was "to get back in shape" (another, common, non-goal goal). However, that just lead to a slog of exercise I didn't really enjoy, and I knew I had to set a real goal.

That became "Finish a 5k".

Then "Finish a 5k under 30 mins."

Then "Finish a 10k."

Then "Finish a marathon."

Then "Finish a marathon under 5 hours."

I never quite achieved that last one (the unseasonable weather on race day didn't help)...but each one was a goal I could effectively measure and plan against.

That's the second part of our goal: a measurable target.

The third and last pitfall I'll talk about here is in making goals that don't apply to the organization as a whole. Here, some of the best examples are from the business world, and one of the most common I see is "get 10 new customers" or "increase sales by 10%".

But Greg, it's meaningful and measurable, and sales come from everyone doing their jobs to win business.

And realistically, yes...the sales team needs a quality product, supported and happy customer references, and much more. However, I can also tell you that most software engineers, or support analysts, or anyone who isn't actively engaged with customers for new sales, will say "that's not my job", with some going so far as to say "so my contributions aren't important".

Which makes it very important to select goals that everyone in the organization can be a part of, at least at the company/organization level. We can have more specific department, team or sub-goals, but those should feed into the primary goals (and we'll delve more into those next time).

So, my third part of a good goal is to make it generalizable to your organization. That might sound like an oxymoron, but it's critical to getting everyone working towards the same objectives.