OP—I’m curious to hear your thoughts about investing greater energy into making goals more ‘legible’, as you put it. It strikes me that organisational alignment via loyalty + compensation + culture + management + hiring is circumventing the main problem, which is that the organisation’s goals aren’t clear.
For example, couldn’t an organisation whose North Star is to “do research to determine priorities for making the long-term future go well” create alignment by breaking down that overarching aim into its constituent goals? I’m spit-balling here, but one such constituent goal could be to “Become a research powerhouse”, which would in turn be measured by a number of concrete and verifiable metrics such as “Publish X policy briefs” and/or “Double number of downloads on knowledge products on the website”. These goals would be fleshed out and discussed in detail, then published for everyone to see (or even create sub-goals for specific teams/departments). One could even publish them online so that external candidates can see them during recruitment rounds. The overarching idea is that being able to assess the organisation’s goals will allow people to self-select, both in terms of the work they’re doing but also in terms of their personal fit within the organisation, leading to greater alignment as people re-focus or exit.
It’s likely very obvious by now, but I’m putting forward John Doerr’s Objectives & Key Results framework. It’s hugely popular these days, and I’ll be the first to admit a bias toward it. Doerr’s broader point, however, is that one of the benefits of better goal-setting is organisational alignment:
A two-year Deloitte study found that no single factor has more impact than “clearly defined goals that are written down and shared freely. . . . Goals create alignment, clarity, and job satisfaction.”
My curiosity regarding your thoughts on this arises purely because your original post doesn’t mention better goal-setting as a way to generate alignment. I also haven’t come across many critiques about the better goal-setting = alignment assumption, so any thoughts on that vein would be very interesting to hear
OP—I’m curious to hear your thoughts about investing greater energy into making goals more ‘legible’, as you put it. It strikes me that organisational alignment via loyalty + compensation + culture + management + hiring is circumventing the main problem, which is that the organisation’s goals aren’t clear.
For example, couldn’t an organisation whose North Star is to “do research to determine priorities for making the long-term future go well” create alignment by breaking down that overarching aim into its constituent goals? I’m spit-balling here, but one such constituent goal could be to “Become a research powerhouse”, which would in turn be measured by a number of concrete and verifiable metrics such as “Publish X policy briefs” and/or “Double number of downloads on knowledge products on the website”. These goals would be fleshed out and discussed in detail, then published for everyone to see (or even create sub-goals for specific teams/departments). One could even publish them online so that external candidates can see them during recruitment rounds. The overarching idea is that being able to assess the organisation’s goals will allow people to self-select, both in terms of the work they’re doing but also in terms of their personal fit within the organisation, leading to greater alignment as people re-focus or exit.
It’s likely very obvious by now, but I’m putting forward John Doerr’s Objectives & Key Results framework. It’s hugely popular these days, and I’ll be the first to admit a bias toward it. Doerr’s broader point, however, is that one of the benefits of better goal-setting is organisational alignment:
My curiosity regarding your thoughts on this arises purely because your original post doesn’t mention better goal-setting as a way to generate alignment. I also haven’t come across many critiques about the better goal-setting = alignment assumption, so any thoughts on that vein would be very interesting to hear
If you’re up for a long-winded take on what I called “underspecified goals,” and how they make alignment fail, I wrote about this question on Ribbonfarm quite a while ago.