POScast #3 – The art of reaching objectives
Gilles Dallest, 29 December 2020
2020 is almost in the books and today I want to talk to you about the art of reaching goals
In this podcast I will tell you about the hierarchy between OBJECTIVE / STRATEGY and DATA
Many times I hear people who tend to mistake tasks with goals. Or overthink their strategy that lacks a clear target. Or start gathering data before knowing where they want to get to.
Start by defining your objectives.
So what is an objective?
Simply speaking: an objective is something we plan to achieve.
For instance….by the end of 2021 we want to jump from number three to number one manufacturer of baby phones in Spain.
That’s an objective.
But let’s forget about business for a moment.
It’s Christmas time and I don’t want to bore you with work so I am going to jump to the world of sports and I will use my personal experience to tell you about the art of reaching objectives.
First I want you to take a moment and think about your personal sports objective for the next year. What do you want to achieve? Is it to set a new personal best time at 10k running? Or losing those extra two kilos won during lockdown? Or picking a new outdoor activity after too much time spent inside in 2020? Do YOU have it?
In my case I want to take part and finish a cycling race that crosses the Pyrenees in one week…that’s my OBJECTIVE And interestingly enough that OBJECTIVE is SMART
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Based. And that is valid for ALL objectives. Sports included
It’s Specific: there is a very clear route, a given event, no doubt there
It’s Measurable: every kilometer I will ride will take me closer to the goal, to reaching the Atlantic
It’s Achievable: actually I already did it a year ago although with some friends and more stops and supported…a bit of a different story
It’s Relevant: cycling is my passion and reaching that goal is of high personal motivation for me and has been for many years
It’s Time-Based: the race starts in 6 months on the 26th of June, that is my time limit to be ready To get me there I started to set up a training plan that includes all sorts of different exercises, sessions, time in the gym, etc….that’s my STRATEGY that is the PLAN Finally, to assist me on achieving it I can count on TOOLS. And more specifically on DATA
For instance these sensors that tell me about my speed, hear rate, power, cadence, etc all these tools gather data as I train I analyze these data after each training to track my progress using different KPIs and in real time during training thanks to this computer.
That is in essence my dashboard! And all of these sensors are useless if I don’t have this unit with me. By the time I am on the starting line in June all of these TOOLS are going to be with me.
They’ll help me at the most crucial time of the event to make sure I am on track with my strategy and help me reach that goal.
That is the hierarchy we mentioned earlies OBJECTIVE / STRATEGY / DATA Too often when we speak about DATA and ANALYTICS but we forget about the big picture.
As a hobby cyclist or in business we start by setting the OBJECTIVE. Defining what we want to achieve. Do this first.
Then set your strategy.
What is your game plan?
What’s the playbook?
How are you going to achieve that goal?
What are the steps in between?
And finally gather the data that will help you track your progress and assist you in taking better decisions. OBJECTIVE STRATEGY DATA Do this exercise for your personal sports objective first.
It’s probably more fun! And I guarantee you you’ll enjoy the logic to it…and if you don’t send me a message we’ll do it together. And then apply this philosophy to your business.
I am sure it will help you lot. It does for me and it will help you get to great conclusions. With that enjoy the Christmas break and happy new year!
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