The BRIDGE: From OKRs and KPIs to Goals That Work!

The world has been upended by the coronavirus, and everything has changed including how we live, work and vacation. Business leaders are altering their communication and motivation styles, employees are figuring out how - or if - they can work remotely, and parents are trying to juggle children who cannot go to school with aging parents whom they cannot visit. 

Since almost nothing is the same as it was just one year ago, it means that many of our goals and how we approach them must change, as well. According to the precepts of goal setting theory (Locke & Latham) we have entered a global “learning goal” condition, which means that even if we have been  successful in achieving our goals in prior years, we probably have to change something about how we accomplish those same goals now. If we fail to acknowledge and make this change immediately, research says we run a high risk of disengagement, depression and failure.

Fortunately, I’ve been preparing for this moment for a number of years and the massive upheavals in every sphere of life have given me my opening to bring fresh thinking to one of the most important skills anyone can have now in order to be resilient, innovative and successful: the art of goal setting. I’ve been spurred along by conversations with colleagues, friends and executive clients who know their companies are missing something in their goal setting approach, but they don’t know how to identify a better way. 

One 2018 conversation that really stood out to me was with a Pulitzer Prize winning author whose consulting company had been purchased by another organization. “What do you think of OKRs and KPIs?” he asked at a Christmas Eve dinner. “They don’t align with all of the research and science on goal setting that I use with clients, so I’m coming up with something new,” I responded. “Good,” he said, sighing with relief. “I hate them.”

If you want to learn how to begin to see your goals in a different way, let’s begin with a simple exercise to align your thinking with some ideas from my new BRIDGE framework.

Start by identifying the goals that are most critical to your success. Then follow these prompts: 

• Write down your goal, then label it as a performance goal or a learning goal. A performance goal is something you have done before that can be accomplished through specific steps that are done within a predictable way and timeframe. A learning goal is something that you haven’t done before, which makes it a “do your best” condition for a period of time. Some of your goals may not have changed much or at all, but since most have, assume that you will probably be pursuing learning goals that involve doing a familiar job in a new way. For example, if you are a car salesman and your goal is to sell 30 cars per month, you can’t sell in the same ways any longer; it is now a learning goal because you haven’t sold in this way before. Click here to read the story of how one car salesman reinvented his approach and is now having his best sales months ever.
• Write down exactly what you have to master in order to succeed. If you are a speaker, do you have to learn how to give speeches via Zoom instead of in person? Interact with audiences without being able to read their body language? Change which topics you offer because your audience has different needs than they did pre-Covid?
• Once you have identified the gaps in your knowledge or skills, brainstorm about who and where you will get that knowledge. From a book? Interviewing people? A micro course?
• Write down who will help you remain focused and motivated to accomplish this new goal. Work colleagues? Family? Friends? An executive coach? A mastermind group? 
• What is the investment of time, money, energy and character strengths you will need to make to flatten your learning curve to the point where you can try out your new approach to success? For example, if a top VIA character strength is zest, how can you tap that strength in new ways to be persistent and energetic with your goals?
• Decide when and to whom you will be accountable for the acquisition of these skills and new knowledge (these could be different people than the ones listed above who motivate you). You can make this step “challenging and specific,” as goal setting theory encourages, instead of easy to attain, which would be a “low goal.” For example, instead of giving yourself the deadline of interviewing one person every week to flatten your learning curve, challenge yourself to interview one person every day for a week.  
• Assess the difficulties you may encounter during your goal pursuit, and plan how you will persist through them with “authentic grit.” The Ancient Stoics called this “premeditatio malorum,” or “premeditate the evils” that will befall you as you move forward. Preparing for obstacles with humility, patience, bravery and optimism will enable you to remain engaged when tough times hit. For a look at how the wrong kind of grit can derail you, click here.
• Finally, establish the excellence that you are seeking. How will you know when you have hit the metrics that indicate the right kind of forward progress that gives you the best possible outcome? For a swimmer, knowing exactly what type of times on what intervals you need to hit to achieve a best time would be the metric to track. A company pioneering a new product would want to have a specific Net Promoter Score after a certain number of months, for example. Measurement of progress is key to excellence because “that which does not get measured does not get achieved.”

Getting your feet wet with this introductory exercise will help you get focused and thinking in a fresh way about where you are right now and how you can invent new approaches that will energize you and those around you to work in a different way. If you are mentoring or managing someone, this discussion can unlock more curiosity and hope for future outcomes, as well as create a contagious energy that is seen in the resilient companies that survive crises like a pandemic.  

If you would like to learn more about the BRIDGE framework and how to adapt it for use in your organization, I am available for virtual keynotes, workshops and retreats.  Email my business manager Michele Lucia at [email protected] for more information. To be added to our email newsletter list and receive free book chapters, exercises and resources for change, text GOAL to 33777 or sign up here. 

My fifth book, Creating Your Best Life, was the first book to connect the science of happiness with the science of goal setting, and it is being reissued in December 2020 to celebrate 100K in sales. You can pre-order a copy now on Amazon, and if you have already benefited from the book, we would like to feature you in our social media marketing campaign. Just send us an email with the subject line #CYBLBook and include a written testimonial of how the book helped you, along with a picture of you holding the book. Our campaign is well underway, so sign up to follow us on Instagram at @cmcoaching and on YouTube.