Precise Goals Drive Proactive Execution

Situation

• A product team at a large tech company was rebuilding their ad tech platform, which was central to the company's various offerings
• The team struggled to define success, creating multiple goal documents that had grown unwieldy:
  • An extensive slide deck with numerous goals
  • Two separate Miro boards from different goal-setting attempts
• Initially, the team had conflicting ideas about their financial targets:
  • One group suggested a modest 20% profit increase
  • Another group proposed a much more ambitious target (increasing profits from £20M to £100M)
• The team was operating without clarity on what leadership actually expected of them

Actions

Discovering the True Goal

• The team conducted a subtractive exercise where:
  • Each person wrote their view of the most important goal on a Post-it note
  • They paired up and iteratively made the goals more concise
  • This process surfaced the conflicting profit targets (20% vs. 500% increase)
• Someone recalled a specific target mentioned in a VP's town hall presentation
• They located the actual goal: £100M in profits by the end of the next financial year

Creating Timeline Clarity

• The consultant put the £100M target on a whiteboard with a timeline
• They mapped key milestones, including:
  • Current date (March)
  • Product launch date (October)
  • End of financial year deadline
• They calculated that only £10M would be generated before October
• This visualization made it clear they needed to generate £90M in just six months after launch

Team Response

• Rather than panicking about the ambitious target, the team immediately shifted to solution mode
• They began questioning their entire approach:
  • Could they ship sooner?
  • Should they do more validation and testing?
  • Was it possible to commercialize features earlier?
  • Could they rebuild individual components instead of doing a complete relaunch?
  • Should they focus on growing the user base first, then upgrading them?

Results

• The team gained urgency and clarity about what success truly meant
• They shifted from abstract goal-setting to concrete action planning
• The visualization of the timeline and financial targets created immediate momentum
• The team began proactively identifying trade-offs and alternative approaches
• They moved beyond domain boundaries to focus on the business-critical outcome

Key Lessons

1. Specific numerical targets drive action: Vague goals like "build a fantastic platform" don't create urgency, but concrete targets (£100M by a specific date) immediately change behavior.

2. Timeline visualization reveals reality: Mapping goals against time exposes gaps between current trajectory and required outcomes, making abstract targets tangible.

3. Clarity eliminates hesitation: When teams understand exactly what success looks like, they overcome fear of tackling high-impact work that might affect critical business functions.

4. Impact goals unlock innovation: Teams with clear impact metrics naturally question assumptions and explore alternative approaches rather than following predetermined plans.

5. One-step-away goals matter: Goals that are directly connected to company objectives (like specific profit targets) eliminate confusion and create alignment across teams.

6. Constraints become guides: When teams understand the true business constraints (like financial deadlines), these constraints shape and focus work rather than limiting it.