Bill Canady argues leaders should skip obsessing over exact numbers when setting goals. Use quick 80/20 and gap analysis instead, then set ambitious targets that stretch beyond what you can currently do. Direction matters more than precision.
I thought today we'd talk a little bit about don't sweating the numbers. Now, data is an essential basis for all strategically valid decision-making. Yet in setting your goal, I advise you not to sweat the numbers beyond a rapid 80/20 analysis and a gap analysis. Before you had a goal, you didn't have one. And without a goal, you have no target, no aspiration, no marker of a future that is better than the present. They do have a basis in data, and they may well be exactly the right numbers. As an aspiration, the numbers that define our goal have yet to be achieved as facts. Yet the aspiration should also be ambitious. A man's reach should exceed his grasp, the poet Robert Browning wrote. To sum up, a good goal makes a good target. We don't need to measure the millimeters in the diameter of the bullseye. No matter. It gives us something to aim at, something to shoot our arrow towards. It provides a direction. When you're trying to get an urgent move on, you need first and foremost a direction.
