T is for Target: If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do (or will it?)

A few weeks ago I introduced you to TARGET whole: six letters, one method for building a way out of a hard problem. Now we take it apart, one letter at a time, starting where the method starts. With the T.

Target state defined. Knowing where you are trying to go is the first step to getting there.

If you don't know where you are going, any road will do, is to butcher the wisdom of some combination of Alice in Wonderland and Yogi Berra. Neither quite said it, but both meant the same thing. So we are in good company thinking about it in principle.

And while it sounds altogether obvious, it is in fact rarely done. And skipping it is not laziness; under pressure it is the most natural thing in the world. Ask a team in the middle of something hard what they are actually trying to achieve, and you tend to get one of two answers. A restatement of the problem: 'we need to stop losing customers'. Or a verb with no finish line: 'improve morale', 'fix the culture', 'get on top of it'. 

Both feel like goals. Neither is one.

A target state is not a direction. It is a destination, described in enough detail that you would know it if you arrived.

What a real target looks like

Remember I have previously written that problem solving is a method, not a mystery. And you can use part of that method to help here.

Write it down, as though it were already true, and make it observable. 

Not 'improve morale', but 'people volunteer for the hard projects’ or ‘our employee satisfaction score is X’.  

Not 'get on top of the backlog', but 'nothing sits unactioned for more than 48 hours, and the team no longer has to apologise for the queue'.

The test is simple, and slightly uncomfortable. If you cannot describe it, let alone measure it, you cannot reliably aim at it. Say precisely what would be happening. What people would be doing, thinking, feeling. What would have stopped. What specifically tells you it is done.

But be careful, and purposeful. Target does not infer that measurable is the same thing as meaningful. Measure the outcome you actually want, not just some convenient proxy. There is not much point to the team hitting the number but missing the point. A target you can count is necessary. A target that counts the right thing is the job.

Vague goals feel safer. That is a big part of the problem. A fuzzy target that can never be missed means it can never really be hit either. Or it means that hitting it doesn’t really matter. We want to be sure to avoid both.

Why capable people skip it

In part, it is pressure. And a hasty rush to action.

Defining the outcome feels like a luxury you cannot afford when the building is on fire. In fact, it is the opposite. It is the most important thing to help tell you which fire to fight first.

Partly it is fear. A precise target is a precise way to fall short, and a vague one keeps the exits open. But open exits are not a strategy; they are a way to feel safe while you go nowhere in particular.

And in part, it is habit. Most organisations are fluent in the language of activity and illiterate in the language of outcomes. They can tell you what everyone is doing. They struggle to tell you what all that doing is for.

The research is clear on this one

Edwin Locke and Gary Latham spent decades on one of the most replicated findings in all of management psychology. Specific, challenging goals produce better performance than vague encouragement to 'do your best'. 'Do your best' sounds motivating. It sets no bar, so it moves no one.

Gabriele Oettingen's work adds a useful twist. Picturing the outcome is not enough on its own; in fact, pleasant fantasy can drain the drive to act. Her method, mental contrasting, pairs a vivid picture of the desired future with a clear look at what stands in the way. The point is not to daydream the destination. It is to define it clearly enough that the obstacles between here and there become visible too.

Try this

Take the hard thing on your desk right now. Give yourself two minutes and one sentence. Finish this line, in the present tense: 'We will know this is resolved when...'

If the sentence comes easily, you have a target, and the rest of TARGET has something to aim at. If it does not, congratulations, you have just found the real work. And it is not out there in the problem, where perhaps you might have thought it was. It is right here, waiting for everyone to agree to what winning looks like.

This exercise is not a delay, and not a gimmick. It is the first best move you can make in complex problem solving. And all it took was two minutes and one sentence.

The reframe

I am going to have to convince almost no one of this truth. Workplaces are replete with meeting rooms full of people busy describing problems. 

The TARGET leader is the one who amidst all this noise, vividly describes the destination. It is a small difference in the beginning of problem solving, and an enormous one by the end.

Defining the target is necessary. It is not sufficient; it is one move of many. But it is the first move and the one that all the others depend on, so get it right first.

Know where you are going. With conviction and precision. And you will be surprised how much easier the journey to getting there suddenly becomes.

Next letter: A, for Assume possibility, and why disciplined optimism is a decision, not a personality.

Steve

The Solutionist Agenda. Clear thinking. Problems solved.