Targets Are Useless!

Okay, let me re-phrase that. The wrong targets are useless.

In fact, the wrong targets can be downright dangerous to your business success.

Let me give you an example. I was working with a client who was puzzled about the lack of progress the business was making toward its owners’ financial goals. They had set targets and created an infrastructure to support them.

After they had been struggling to translate their targets into actual financial results for about three years we started working together.

It became clear early on that the overriding problem was that there was a problem with the targets they had set. True, those targets, had they been reached, would have created the financial results the owners wanted. The problem was that those targets were simply incapable of moving them anywhere toward their financial goals.

They had fallen into one of the traps of setting targets that I see most often. They had created targets that meant something to them, but were meaningless and useless at an operational level – the level where employees work, where customers interact, and activities go on.

The solution was simple, though not easy.

We worked together for a couple of months to truly dissect their business. We built an active model that identified the key activities, and we built a quantitative predictor of what combinations of activities, products, and customers would achieve their financial targets.

Then we re-set meaningful targets that were at the operational level where team members could relate to them, and actions could be taken to create change.

Almost instantly (literally the next business day) results started to improve. What we had done was create targets that bridged the gap between where the owners wanted the business to go (what financial results they wanted) and the “in-the-trenches” perspective team members and customers. As soon as we did that, team members could take meaningful action, and make effective choices that started to move the business toward the ultimate goals of the owners.

So targets for your business aren’t bad. But the wrong targets are.

Targets are a lot like sushi. When it’s done right the results are amazing. When it’s done poorly it’s a miserable experience.

What is a “wrong target”?

It’s one that isn’t meaningful at the operational level – where change actually happens.

So take a look at the targets you’ve set for your business. Are they meaningful at the operational level? Can you drive success with them?

Or are you stuck measuring whether the target was reached or not after the fact, when it’s too late to make any changes?