Point to the Goal!

It’s frustrating not to have an overarching goal. It’s like watching back-to-back commercials the length of a movie.

There’s nothing tying everything together. No plot. No purpose.

And worst of all, it’s unintentional!

There’s nothing terribly difficult about this concept, but it can still be intimidating. Doubt floods your mind. What if you make the wrong goal? What if it turns out to be unreasonable or stupid? What if no one cares about hitting the target?

These are valid questions, but let’s just ignore them for now and trust in the value of being intentional with our actions. You can’t be intentional unless you know what you want to do first.

If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.
— Zig Ziglar

So come up with a plan. You have enough information right now to devise a very specific goal for the next two years or so. Maybe it’s sales figures or growth trajectory or product launches.

But you also need a long term, visionary goal, even though it will not be realized for ten years or more! The bigger and more intentional the achievement, the better! Jim Collins calls this a Big Hairy Audacious Goal — or BHAG for short.

Evaluate your team’s core values. Evaluate your team’s mission. Evaluate your passion and belief in the goal. And of course, evaluate your team.

And then decide on a goal vastly higher than if your team just stayed on the current trend of progress.

Once you have one, your team members will need to be reminded about it. They will need to understand not just that it exists, but why it exists. And that is your job as the leader.

Now point to the goal! Point again and again. Remind your team of their capability and the need to achieve this goal for the good of the company! And their own good, because everyone enjoys putting their back into a worthy endeavor — whether they admit it or not!

Point some more, until your team’s trajectory is starting to line up with the target.

And even if your team falls short of the mark, they will have done much better than if there was no goal.


What is your main goal right now? If you don’t have one, how does it feel?