Know Where You Are Going
Don Davis PhD, MBA
I live in Colorado and we have some wonderful hiking trails in this area. I have set a goal for myself to hike the Boulder Traverse (https://yourboulder.com/5-peak-boulder-traverse/) before the weather turns at the end of this year. Having run marathons in my past I know that training is important. My training for this potentially 9+ hour hike will be to hike up each one of the mountains independently then roughly 4 weeks from now I will hike all of them at once. So far I have completed Sanitas and Flagstaff and still have Green, Bear, and South Boulder to go.
This past weekend while hiking Flagstaff I ran into a family who was doing what I would call very risky hiking. The weather was in the 80s and they stopped me on the trail to ask which trail I was on. They did not have a map, water, snacks, or anything else to make it very far. Luckily, after our short conversation about the trail, I saw them turn and go back to one of the lookouts just off of the road.
In my opinion, you should always have some basics to ensure you will be safe when hiking on trails. Number one on my list is a basic map. This family could quickly wind up on a trail that could be too challenging for them without the needed food or water.
Although we can clearly see dangers in our external life I also find it interesting how many companies find it challenging to establish that basic map and then communicating it to their employees.
In one of my previous companies, we had a series of meetings about establishing goals. The most senior leaders could not agree about rolling out measurable goals because of the fear that it would hurt employee morale.
If objectives for an organization set the place that we would like to go on a map, employee key results are the steps that it takes to get to the place that we want to go to. Having people work on random tasks based on the whims of the leader seems to be analogous to hiking in the woods without a map or the proper supplies.
If you are in an organization that does not have proper goals that focus on the short or long term then there is a really great book by Alexander Maasik titled “Step by Step Guide to OKRs” that provides a vision for setting quarterly objectives, writing key results and getting teams to deliver behind them. I would encourage even individual team leaders to read this book so that they can set goals for their teams.
