Bill Canady argues leaders obsess too much over exact goal numbers when what matters is direction and aspiration. Use an 80/20 analysis to check if your targets are possible, then stop sweating the precision. A goal is a bullseye, not a blueprint.
Hello everyone. I'm Bill Canady, the 80/20 CEO, and it's great to be with you today. 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. That is, there's no strategy without accurate interpreted data. Yet in setting your goal, I advise you not to sweat the numbers beyond a rapid 80/20 analysis and a gap analysis. Let me explain. The most important thing about a goal that kicks off the first 100 days is not how you arrive at the numbers in that goal. The most important thing is that the goal is a goal. 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. The numbers, they do have a basis in data and they may well be exactly the right numbers. But then again, maybe better numbers could have had been chosen. One thing is for certain, they are not the wrong numbers. Now, how do I know this? Because they're aspirational. These numbers make up our goal, do not represent factual reality. As an aspiration, the numbers that define our goal have yet to be achieved as facts. They are aspirations for sure. True, to constitute a good goal, the numbers need to be at the very least possible and preferably feasible. The 80/20 and gap analysis will go a long ways to ensuring that. Yet the aspiration should also be ambitious. A man's reach should exceed his grasp, the poet Robert Browning wrote, and that's good advice for anyone seeking to earn the right to grow. To sum up, a good goal makes a good target. We don't need to measure the millimeters in the diameter of the bullseye. It's a bullseye and maybe a little too big or maybe a little too small, but maybe just right. 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. Thank you again for taking time to learn more about PGOS and the 80/20 operating system. And remember, together we will fly.
