The secret to higher goal attainment and transparency

When you set goals (like OKRs and KPIs), you want to make sure that you’ll achieve them. Studies have shown that 90% of companies fail to achieve the goals they set for themselves. But what’s the purpose of a goal if you aren’t keeping it front and center and actively working toward it?

In this article, I’ll explain how you and your team can beat the odds and consistently achieve your goals. Plus how to keep everyone in the loop on what you’re working on.

Regular Check-ins are key

To ensure that you and your team achieve your goals, make sure that every goal has a lead. The lead isn’t necessarily the only person working on that goal (a goal can also have multiple contributors), but the lead is ultimately accountable for its successful accomplishment.

The lead will need to frequently review how their goal is progressing. In fact, the more often you check in on your goals, the higher the likelihood is that you’ll achieve them. Our data has proven that employees who updated progress on their goals 2.5 times as often as others achieved on average 2 times more goals.

In other words, the key to high goal attainment is a continuous rhythm of execution! Set goals > Track progress > Reflect on the work that truly matters. The most effective teams:

• Make execution a habit by motivating teams to stay on top of the work that matters and remain accountable for their goals.
• Instill a culture of transparency by fostering visibility into goal progress, priorities, and potential blockers.  
• Initiate meaningful conversations and encourage feedback and collaboration.

In doing so you create a culture of open communication. You give everyone all the context they need to understand teams’ priorities and provide support where needed. But how do you integrate these processes into your weekly workflows?

Given all the research and existing frameworks, Perdoo just revamped its Check-in feature and included Reflections to include everything you need to make sure you’re creating a continuous rhythm of execution. All in one place. 🎉

Perdoo’s all-new check-in form, reflections, and more

At Perdoo we believe your goals and all the work you do serve a common purpose and hence should live together. Check-ins automatically keep leads accountable throughout the quarter at a pace that works best for them (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly). And we’ve added Reflections to enable teams and individuals a space to communicate and reflect on all the work that’s key to their success.

Perdoo’s new check-in form is what you need to make execution a habit while creating that communication flywheel to initiate collaboration and feedback. Use Check-ins to:

• Achieve more goals

We can’t say this enough, but the more often you check in on your goals, the higher the chances are that you achieve them. For that reason, Perdoo makes sure your Check-ins are never missed. You can:

• Configure automated weekly Check-in reminders to be sent to your teams on a specific day and time.
• Updates can be pushed to your Slack channel of choice. Alternatively, you can directly Check-in via Slack or MS Teams.

And our new streak badges celebrate and reward those that make it a habit to check-in regularly 🔥

• Stay on top of progress

The Check-in form is your one-stop-shop that brings all the goals (OKRs, KPIs, and/or Initiatives) you’re responsible for in one place:

• Get a clear overview of how your goals are progressing (including those that you’ve integrated with different tools).
• Communicate the status and health of these goals, providing any supporting background information.
• In the comments, record the efforts you’re engaging in to share what you’re working on to drive progress on these goals.

The Objective your Key Results belong to or the Key Results your Initiatives belong to will be surfaced on the form to ensure you have all the context you need to push these goals forward. Not to forget, we’ll feature your last update comment to ensure you know where you last left off without needing to click into your goals.

• Reflect

And last but not least, use our latest addition to the Check-in form — Reflections aka standup. Want to mimic your weekly standup, already using plans, progress, and problems, or maybe you’ve got another weekly ritual you’d like to facilitate? Reflections are flexible.  

We offer you a customizable template, allowing you to create a standardized set of questions or topics you’d like your teams to reflect on at a cadence of your choice. Most importantly, these sit alongside your goals to contextualize all the work that’s crucial in pushing you forward.

Use reflections to understand what teams and individuals are doing week to week in order to achieve their goals. Share wins and challenges. And identify opportunities to support and contribute to the work others are doing.

An example framework for Check-ins

We’re not the only ones that think checking in is critical to success. In Radical Focus, Christina Wodtke introduces the weekly “four-square”. The four quadrants communicate various areas of work that matter most to a team.

1. This week’s priorities (top-left quadrant): This sets the tone for the week. You start with communicating the week’s priorities based on varying urgencies. These may include tasks that support your goals or they can simply be things that you and your team consider important.
2. OKR progress & health (top-right quadrant): Check in on the status of your OKRs, update progress and mention the efforts being done to push this OKR forward.
3. Health metrics (bottom-right quadrant): Include the status of any key health metrics (aka KPIs) that you need to keep a close eye on ie. Customer Satisfaction, Revenue, etc. Are they healthy? Yes or no? And what’s being done to maintain their health or nurture them back to health?
4. Next 4-week’s pipeline (bottom-left quadrant): Have any big projects or Initiatives you need to work on in the coming 4-weeks? Use this space to describe your monthly pipeline.

If you’re already working with a similar model, you can simply use Perdoo’s Check-in feature for your OKRs and KPIs, and customize your Reflections template to match the 4-quadrant example.

The bottom line?

If there’s one thing you need to remember from this article it is that the key to success when working with goals is creating that rhythm of execution. Keeping your goals front and center, communicating status and progress, and reflecting on work that matters most is critical.

How do you do that? Simply make checking in a habit.

Ready to create a rhythm of feedback in your organization? Sign up for your free account here.