How to Figure Out Your REAL Most Important Goal
When it comes to choosing our most important business goal, this is NOT the best question to ask: “What are our MOST IMPORTANT goals?”
The BETTER question is: “If EVERY OTHER AREA of our company remained status quo, what is the ONE area where change would have the greatest impact overall?”
When we ask ourselves the first question, we tend to think about all the things that we can improve. And in doing so, our tendency to choose TOO MANY “most important” goals.
When we ask ourselves the second question, we have to first decide what we are willing to LET be status quo, so that we can focus our energy towards the one thing that will result in a disproportionate improvement in our entire business.
As leaders of high-growth businesses, the hard part is that we constantly see all the problems or areas of improvement in our business. It taunts us and keeps us up at night. Naturally, it becomes tantalizing to want to fix them all.
So the even harder part about being a leader is facing the reality that we can’t fix or improve everything at once. It’s facing the reality that 80% of our time is likely going to be spent on running the business as it is, with all of its problems and imperfections intact.
As hard as it is, accepting that reality frees us mental space to decide on that one area where change will have the greatest impact overall.
Reflection Questions:
If every other area of our company remained status quo, what is the ONE area where change would have the greatest impact overall?
What metric would represent this goal?
What 1 to 3 consistent actions or decisions predict progress towards this goal?
How clear is the rest of my team on this goal?
What would it mean to prioritize this goal above everything else?