Lately, we at Goals by KeepSolid have been talking a lot about the essence of business objectives at this blog. We’ve discussed how to measure your progress towards your goals and how to set your objectives for success.
Today, we will cover the last and, arguably, most important stage - actually getting your organization into the process of reaching your goals. We will explain the exact process of achieving your business objectives by translating them into habitual daily routine.
Begin with BSC goal decomposition
BSC, aka Balanced ScoreCard, is a system for strategic planning and management. It allows businesses to:
- Align day-to-day tasks with strategy and global objectives
- Communicate their goals to stakeholders
- Monitor and measure progress towards strategic targets
- Prioritize products, projects, and services
See this piece for a detailed review of a balanced scorecard and its place in business operations. But in short and for the sake of today’s discussion, BSC comes from the idea of looking at traditional financial measures in conjunction with strategic measures to get a “balanced” view of an organization’s performance.
The concept of BSC has grown beyond the mere use of perspectives, becoming a holistic system for strategy management. A key benefit of using a balanced scorecard is that it gives businesses a way to “connect the dots” between all the components of management and strategic planning.
BSC shows a visible connection between the programs and projects that employees and teams are working on. This provides KPIs to track success, decomposes the strategic goals the company is trying to reach, and solidifies the vision, mission, and strategy of the organization.
How to translate your business goals into habits
Let’s delve into the exact process of establishing long-term goals and translating them into daily habits and immediate actions, turning them into a lifestyle.
1. Establish the overarching objective
The first step is to clearly determine where you want to go. What is it you want your business to achieve, or something you want to change about it?
Don’t go too overboard with it - an overly specific long-term objective can become a constraint rather than a guideline. So, while you definitely want to have specific short-term goals, long-term objectives will work better when defined as broad initiative. After all, your business is likely to undergo major changes in the years to come, so sticking too much to a strictly defined plan can do your company more harm than good.
So, figure out your big Objective. Financial - where do you want your business to be financially in a decade or two. Administrative - what in your organizational structure do you want to change? PR - how do you want your business to be known to your customers? And so on.
2. Decompose your overarching objective
So, you’ve determined a big objective for your business. It’s something you truly want for your organization. Now it’s time to break down that vision into specific and manageable subgoals. Make sure to use the SMART methodology to define them correctly.
Your subgoals need to be SMART - Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-bound. Let’s see what exactly each of these means:
- Specific - it’s clear what the goal is and what needs to be done to achieve it.
- Measurable - it’s clear whether you’re moving towards the goal’s success or not. It’s either a yes/no thing, or related to achieving a specific number.
- Actionable - it takes clear actions that you can take every period of time. This is extremely important for translating the objective into habits, so keep this point in mind.
- Realistic - your business can actually pull the subgoal off. Success and failure should not rely on other entities.
- Time-bound - it’s clear when the goal is supposed to be achieved, with definite deadlines and milestones.
3. Manage your subgoals
Now that you have a number of subgoals in place, you need to break them down into smaller pieces - tasks. This is the bread and butter of our approach, as the tasks are specific actions your employees or teams can do on a daily basis, eventually turning into a habit.
This requires consideration and thinking. First of all, it’s vital to use a tool that will facilitate the approach we’ve described earlier. For one, take a look at Goals by KeepSolid, as it allows to:
- Set the main Objective, the idea of the project
- Add SMART subgoals, called Key Results
- Create tasks related to each Key Result and assign them to specific teams or individual members
Goals by KeepSolid allows you to break down your long-term objectives into something as routine as daily tasks. This is what actually translates your overarching goals into habits - the fact that you do something routinely while also keeping the grander ideal in sight.
