Beyond Basic Goal Setting for Cleaning Businesses | The Magnetic Operator Ep.9

What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Magnetic Operator. Here's your co host, Sam, and your host, Kaden.

I'm Sam.

And Sam flew all the way in from China this morning just to be here.

Yeah, I did. I was on the Great Wall and I said, man, I got to get back for the Magnetic Operator.

Elon Musk called him up, he's like, hey, I have this test rocket. You'll be back in five minutes.

Yeah, and here I am on the Magnetic Operator. Actually, Kaden and I live five minutes apart.

Makes it really easy to come hang out, do these episodes. We've been having a lot of fun. We're about a dozen episodes in ish. Maybe not.

Yeah, maybe not quite close.

And it's been quite fun to engage with the audience and to hear you guys feedback. So hopefully if you haven't and you're listening but you haven't subscribed, that really helps give the distribution to your fellow industry mates and, and we'd really appreciate boosting that so you can actually be notified when new episodes drop and things like that. So if you're just a watcher, go ahead and engage, ask us questions, because that actually helps us funnel the content, create the content of the episodes. And really we're just trying to be here and serve and help you in all of our experience. And we get better at that by being able to tailor these episodes to even more challenges and problems that you continue to face day to day.

So what are we talking about today, Caden? We're gonna be talking about in the episode the strategies that turn good teams into great teams. Did you ever read the book Good to Great?

Yes, did Good to Great.

We were just talking about books we read. And he's like, well, I haven't read a lot of books cover to cover. And I was like, yes, you have. And he's like, oh. And then he started thinking, I started thinking.

But he's like, okay, I have read a lot of books, but compared to how many books that I don't read cover to cover, I'm like a.

You grab a snippet.

Especially like chapter. I'm like, oh, I really want to dive into that. Or like those new apps today where you can have a 15 minute version of the book. A part of it is like, I'm just constantly on the go, go, go. So one person asked me one time, he's like, don't you feel guilty not finishing it? Like, if you're missing out?

That's how I feel.

Like the fear of missing out like fomo. And I'm like, fomo.

But I do. I've good information. Once I start something, I got to finish it.

Yeah. See, for me, it's like, yeah. If it doesn't interest me anymore, I'm moving on to the next thing.

Next thing that's needed for me.

I'm always like, hyper focused on the path of momentum.

And that's why you're the CEO and I'm the CRO.

I, I. You have the idea.

You think about the idea. And then I have to finish the whole book.

I'm like, all right, here's the idea. I need a good executor. Here's the thing. I love executing on things that fulfill that I find fun, like diving in and executing. I have to be careful as a CEO sometimes of diving too much into execution. Yeah. Because then I kind of mow people over.

In previous episodes, we've talked about letting, like, delegating, giving people the ability to do that. And actually that kind of plays into what we're trying to accomplish today. Right. What are some of the challenges you face as an organization specific to goal setting and if it doesn't include action.

Right.

If you're not actually having a plan to execute and then you actually go execute, it's a big challenge. And so we want to help you understand today in the episode, what's that secret sauce that will get you to the next level? Become that elite magnetic operator. Spoiler alert. It's about clarity.

What?

Clarity is key thing.

I'll be a little bit Pretty transparent. For years, I hated goal setting. I hated the concept of goal setting. It was always frustrating.

Nobody likes it, but I love it now.

And so we're going to talk about maybe a little bit of that transformation throughout the episode of what changed. If you just heard Sam say, talking about goal setting, and you're, like, about to, like, stop and, like, get off.

And forget this dude's pause. Close X.

Don't.

Don't do it. I just subconsciously told them to do that. Don't do that. Keep watching.

But there is a way to perhaps change your mindset about it, and hopefully we can help with that today.

Absolutely. So let's dive into our main segment of the episode, Beyond Mach 1. Taking your operations supersonic.

So if you've been following long enough, for now, the idea of taking operations supersonic kind of sounds like what it means is being able to experience. Have you ever experienced going Mach 1?

No. But I went on a ride recently at Lagoon. It's a local theme park and I took my 4 year old daughter on the Dragon, which is a circular dragon that goes really fast. She's four years old, it was her first ride and she started to black out. My poor heart. I was like, oh my gosh, my daughter. Because of the sheer G force of even that little dragon circulating. So to your question, no, I have not experienced that force. But there's like forces out there and even those ones give me a headache.

So what's crazy is we went to Dollywood on a summer vacation with my family. My three year old, almost four, also found the thrill in these rides. There's one called the Tennessee Tornado or whatever. I think it goes three or four GS and it's intense. It's like three loops.

Did she go on it?

No, she was too small for that one.

I was going to say you had to be 40. She shouldn't have let my 4 year old on there.

She was 42 and she shouldn't have let her on there. 48. She went on a lot of rides. But anyways, I always think of just that force of wow, things are going crazy. But like hitting that moment of going supersonic. Google up an image. Heck, maybe we'll edit an image in the episode for it. But like when a plane goes supersonic, it breaks the sound barrier. And when we're talking about operations, that's the level of passion that we have for operations for commercial cleaning companies. There is a moment in time where things are in such a chaotic state and you're trying to grow and in order to go supersonic, you have to start gaining momentum and all of a sudden you don't arrive at it because you surpass the sound barrier of going supersonic. But man, it's a cool feeling. And then you're off. So as we dive into these main segments, let's keep that visual in mind. That's what we're talking about. What it takes to wherever you're at as an organization to go supersonic. And you might still be trying to get in the plane, you might be on the Runway trying to take off, you might be already up in the air, but you're afraid to hit the acceleration. Wherever you're at on the journey, yeah, it's still a journey in progress towards going supersonic. That's our hope that in these segments we're providing a better pathway and easier action steps to do that 100%.

So let's get into the question that has been posed today by Katie. Katie, thanks for listening and following and sharing your thoughts. Katie wants to know, why am I not hitting my goals? That's pretty straightforward. She shared some additional items, though. She said, I hate setting goals. No one alone. Not alone. No one in my company cares. Not alone. It's just a wish list from me. And we never hit them. It's depressing, Katie. I felt this yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day before.

No, we're better now.

Yeah, but it's true. It's that incremental, right?

It's that.

It's the climb, right? Who sings that song?

Miley Cyrus.

Yeah, okay, let's not bring that up. But it's all about getting that incremental climb happening until you reach the point that Kaden just made. You break that barrier. And once you break the barrier, it's like next level, right?

If you've seen Top Gun, Maverick, obviously he's way past Mach 1. He hits Mach 10. But there's a certain level where like, even when he hits Mach 10, he's like just a little bit more like just that desire to push. That's the feeling we want to create. Business owners and C suite executives and senior level leaders that are constantly being like, can we push this further? Can we get faster? Can we get more efficient? So with that, Katie, your question that we've built the episode around for you today about setting goals. I'm going to start off with a little bit of my story and setting goals. Literally a decade ago, when I first got into Otuvi and I was actually started off as an executive assistant to the CEO, at that time, there was this ambiguous goal for us to be doing like 4 and 10 million in revenue. And it was set by that management team and it was like, never talked about again.

Did you say 410 million?

4 to 10 million.

I see, I see.

Okay. Yeah. We're just a 10 billion dollar company by that point, you know, in 2014. So it was just like this idea and it was ambiguous and no one did anything about it was there.

It was just there floating image of a shocker.

Shocker wasn't hit 10 years ago. And so that doesn't shock me at all. As I stepped into executive leadership and grew in the company, that was one thing that I wasn't really versed in, like setting goals. And I had an example of like, if you set goals and you don't hit them, no one talks about them. That was just the wrong way. But talking about the okay, operator. There is a level and it's the first step. And I think what that did was the fact that there was a goal set. It did project something to be achieved in the future. Yes, we failed along the way in a lot of things, but an okay operator like that's first step. If you don't have any goals set, Katie, it sounds like you've set goals, so you're probably a little bit beyond that. But for those that haven't even set a goal, that is step number one. Actually, step number one is always becoming aware. So becoming aware, it's find out where you need to improve and things like that. We won't go into that in this episode, but setting goals and making them actionable, like what is an action step that I can take today? But if you stop at that level, the challenge is, is that it leaves you without a clear path. Like, hey, here's the next action step. I have this goal. But if you don't build a system and processes around it and more clarity, you're going to hit a ceiling after setting that goal. But I do want to point out that's okay. That's step one and we don't want you to stop there. But step two, taking it to the next level, becoming more notable in setting goals would be.

Well, to be a notable goal setter, you actually have to have smart goals. You have to be able to understand that it's just beyond putting something out there. Right? It has to really follow this path. And then once you've set that goal, what are we going to do to achieve it? There's priorities, there's the tracking of it, the follow ups, the evaluations.

Right.

Those things are challenging though, right? How we're communicating on that, the consistency level of following up on that, I think that's probably one of the bigger challenges in general when it comes to goals. Who's following up? Who cares? Usually it is the top person just saying, hey, go make us $4 million and tell me when you've done it. It's like, well, I can't. Right?

One thing I will point out is notable being that next step, Katie, you might be in a scenario where you were kind of at the okay level. You were taking step one. Step two is like, okay, well, are there some business books that I could be. Speaking of business, there's those books again.

Read them cover to cover, you'll be grateful.

Some of them I'm a believer. If it's feels like it's wasting your time, you aren't getting anything out of it, move on, your time's too precious anyways. So as the opportunity of being More of that next step. And notable is like the idea that I can actually add more clarity, take the next step. Smart goals, that whole framework, if there's many other frameworks out there. But let's take the simplicity of like the idea of smart goals, that they're specific, they're measurable. What does the A stand for? Actionable.

Actionable are repeatable.

Repeatable and then time bound. Right. So even that alone, it's like, here's a prime example, probably not a good goal. We want to grow between 4 and $10 million in revenue.

Boy, that's such a big gap too. They can't just make a cool million so fast.

Something that would have been more aligned. And Katie, maybe this is your next step is. That's really hard to connect with. As it was for the team at the time. It's. Well, let's get very specific. No, we actually want to hit 5.5 million in revenue. And here's how we're going to measure our progress along the way. And here's the action steps that we're going to take as a team and we're going to do these repeatable steps and we're going to do it by 18 months from now. So it's time bound. And that's the next step I would advise you to take if you were just at that first level, but if you are already there, this is where we're going to dive into the elite mo. This is where we're going to say, if you truly want to understand goal setting and you're ready to take it to that elite performance, to take your operations supersonic, something has to be different. So we're going to talk about actual action steps that you can take today. Core values as a business for OTUBI.

First off, if you create a list of core values, make sure that you say them in order as the President has described. Because if you don't, he will let you know in the most random places that, hey, you said it wrong, you didn't do it in order. But our core values at OTUVI are reliable, open, authentic, resourceful and outcome driven. In that order spells out roro. Roro be the RORO of otuv.

And whether it's three or five and you don't have them in order or not, it's fine. But your core values should be steering the ship of your company, of your operations. Otherwise, why have them? So it doesn't mean that your goals are to create better processes with core values. I'm just saying that the alignment between Goals and core values. There should be this synergistic moment where accomplishing our goals and the way we do them and why we're going about trying to hit our goals goes back to the cultural value of your company, of this is who we are, this is what we're trying to accomplish. Here's the thing. It wouldn't make sense to align with your core values 1 if you don't have them. But if culturally you've failed and your core values become this ambiguous, random things on walls that no one actually represents. So there is a level of core values actually sticking mattering. Yeah.

So as you're speaking, I'm thinking like there's two words to that. There's core and values. So looking at core, first, what's an apple core? It's the center. Right. So if you find what makes your business move the core of it, then you tie a value to it. It's a core value because you want to develop everything you do on that.

Right.

Build a foundation of values that are core to your organization. And so goals should naturally align with those core values because they. That is so like when you look at OTUVs, reliable, open, authentic, resourceful, outcome driven. We hire and fire to that core value because we believe those types of people are what make that organization move. And so when it comes to goals, it's easier to set a goal, Katie, that actually can be hit because you have the core and there's values tied to that core. So absolutely. The whole idea of getting the core values and then aligning goals to those core values is to reinforce this idea of having a foundation of K. If everything was stripped away, we would at least have this. Everybody is on board with this.

Yeah. I think of some of the goals we've set for our business right now, the reality is that they would be unachievable if we didn't have the core to rely on to achieve them. They because every single person that we ask to be a part of, we simply use the EOS framework for our goal setting type of framework. But it's more than just the idea that the premise of it is that as people are in charge of leading the organization and executing in the organization and down to your front line, they're the ones that are making the goals happen. And so they have to be able to see that these alignments of here's what we're trying to accomplish as an organization this quarter. If I as an employee exemplify these core values, I am way more equipped to accomplish these goals. And I can actually contribute better to accomplish these goals. So that's number one. That's a very foundational piece. You don't have to see a direct pathway. It doesn't mean the goal is related to exactly the core value, but it's the pathway, like I said, the synergistic pathway of wow, if I am going to accomplish these goals, I have to rely on our core value.

So then this one's huge. This is a concept that I absolutely love. It's something in my career that I've done so much of is defining roles and having clarity in who owns what. Recently, working with an academy, they talked about the direct, responsible individual, the dri.

Right.

The individual who is responsible for the thing to make sure that it's executed upon. If you clearly define that what done looks like the person who's going to do it, you give clarity in what needs to happen and then they can go execute. That will lead you to greater outcomes of goals being achieved. It's easier said than done though, right?

Yeah.

So the question is, how do you identify them?

Right.

Who are those people? What resources do they lack? It starts with defining.

Right.

Getting clear on what you want to accomplish based on core values and. And then actually making sure people are equipped to do it and can do it. So what are your thoughts on role, clarity and responsibility as it pertains to a commercial cleaning company?

I was on a meeting yesterday where I cracked a joke about the job description. And sometimes we put out this, hey, we're trying to hire you as a senior ops leader in some way, shape or form for your organization, is trying to bring people in from a managerial level, from supervisor level, even from cleaners that has this ability to execute on the desire expectations that you set from the very beginning, which started with the job description. I'm not saying you have to review the job description every month, but I've been guilty of this where that's what we initially hired for. And because business is business and roles and responsibilities change and you kind of get repositioned. But during that process, it is very easy to lose the defined role that you're responsible of having and the responsibilities that you're expected. Now, it doesn't mean you're constantly again, rewriting a job description, but it's really easy to get lost in the evolution of business operations because things are constantly changing and moving. Clients are growing, clients are leaving, new accounts are coming on board that clarity might be missing. So just because they're hired on, and you said, hey, you are the ops manager for These accounts, it doesn't mean that that is as clear as it was day one. So always going back to answer your question and adding to it, if you've already done done that and it was like a few years ago, probably time to do it again. Yeah. Define their role and responsibility and how they are going to contribute to it. And actually whenever you set a goal, it doesn't matter what their job description is. Ultimately it matters does every action, step and process of this goal that we've set, if we used the SMART framework, if we used whatever it is that there is a direct individual responsible for that step. So that's step number two, Katie. That's what's going to take you even further into the elite magnetic operator type of mindset. The third one that we're going to point out today is to recognize and reward achievements. There is nothing more disheartening than just setting a goal, never talking about again and never talking about progress to it. It could also be said in the same way that if you aren't moving the needle or whatnot and you don't talk about it and you don't recognize the fact that things aren't moving and trying to talk about it, that it doesn't create this open environment. Which is why it's one of our core values to create an open environment as an organization that says, hey, we are open with our thoughts, whether they are good or needs improvement. But achievement, there's so much momentum that gets built energetically as an organization when you recognize even the smallest achievements. We as human beings need praise. Everyone needs praise. We might need praise to show up in different ways, but at the core of us as a human being, we need praise and we need recognition for the progress and the milestones and the things that happen. So part of the journey of becoming an elite MO is to acknowledge and celebrate milestones. Which means you can't just set a goal of 4 to 10 million dollars and then never land in there. Hope you land in there.

Hope's not a strategy, Katie, but I.

Think about predefined the moments where you're going to celebrate how we do this again. If you're familiar with the EOS framework, something to look at is every week you're going over like scorecards and metrics and is an opportunity to celebrate hitting an achievement every single week. As leadership, is there some type of system you could put in place, Katie, that ensures that there's consistent opportunity to celebrate small wins when they happen? And that's going to give you a much more Engaged culture as an organization, to have a desire to set goals, to follow through on the goals. And again, even if you don't hit them, if you always hit your goals, you're doing goals wrong. But to have a desire for the company and the team to never give up on setting goals and trying the next thing. And it's because you gotta instill a culture of recognize and reward achievements along the way, which makes it the journey enjoyable instead of just the arrival.

Leadership in general, I would argue. I mean, you and I are leaders. This happens. We often focus on.

Yeah.

What we didn't hit. I know there is a need for perception to shift as a leader. So Katie, you listeners, when it comes to setting this elite framework up right, how do you create a culture that develops these goals, this level of recognition and reward in order to actually implement it and have it happen consistently, you have to think differently. And not always just saying, oh well, we didn't hit the goal. So instead of celebrating, we should be in worry mode. And I'm guilty of this. I've been guilty of this this last week. I'm like, ah, dang it, we didn't hit what we're trying to hit. And it's frustrating. Katie, I had the same feelings you did last week. Right. It's because we didn't hit goals for that week. And so you say, well, where are we going wrong? But what I can do, and I think the opportunity for leaders in general is what are we doing right and where can we double down on that? Right. How can we make that happen?

Yeah. And you know, one thing that I just thought of is it's really easy to not to want to settle goals lower, but there might be a time and place for a short while to get them below the expectations you would ideally like to have them set at just to create that energy of achievement. It doesn't mean you keep it there, but there is a level of operations that if you've never hit any of your goals or made any progress because you're always setting them way too high, where you're going to burn out the team. So there might be a time and a season to bring those down to what is an ideal to be accomplishing as an organization, you have kind of like, no, we've got to be doing this. We can't set a goal lower than this. I get that. But what I'm pointing out is can there be a month or two in your operational framework where you're just trying to create better wins for the team? So something to Think about on that. The last thing, the fourth item about being the elite MO is you've got to be setting the example from the top. You can't be a leader that says, hey, team, we need to accomplish these goals and you yourself never live that lifestyle. You've got to demonstrate your commitment in life, personally and professionally. You've got to show up. You can't convince a team to go and do if you yourself don't have a vision of going and doing. Even in your personal life, you as the leader are not just the business leader. You are a life leader. Listen, how well is your marriage if you're married, how well do you have certain social statuses, all of those things, goals, personality infusions into what you are trying to become as a human being? It starts with the top.

Yeah.

Like my team very much knows some of the goals and dreams I have or the passions I have and what I drive to do that.

He has a whole document of a vision.

Yes, the vivid vision. That's another thing. If you want to go create something, it's. The vivid vision isn't a goal necessarily. It's you as a leader creates a vision for people to see themselves in as well as yourself. So I won't go. We could probably spend a whole episode on what it means to establish a vision as senior leadership. But goal setting starts as being example from the top. When we implemented the EOS framework a couple years ago, we only started with managers because we had to sift through all the yuck of trying to follow systemized structures before we tried to go through all of that with the team members. Right, so those are your four things again, starting with the four things of. What we're going to do is you're going to align the goals with the core values. You're going to define the roles and responsibilities with clarity, and then you're going to recognize and reward achievements and then make sure it always starts with you. That's what it's going to take to become an elite MO and break that.

Barrier that we talked about earlier.

Going supersonic.

That's not what it sounds like. I'm so sorry. That's just terrible. But what is perfect is that framework. So Katie, go use it and it should help you. We've seen it help ourselves in leadership and it's been good. But there's a myth out there, Caden. People always say, I'm constantly telling my employees what our goals are. They don't listen. I mean, have we experienced that?

Yeah, I kind of just had this thought come to mind. Okay. Are you telling them? Are you showing them what your goals are?

Hey, here's a number. Four to $10 million. Go, go get that.

That was a decade ago. I think we can move on.

I think it's a perfect example of a bad goal.

Hey, I didn't set that goal.

I know what I'm saying. You've learned. You used what we've talked about to make goals better.

Yeah. The myth that you believe that you are telling your employees constantly and they should just remember is the myth. It's not the fact that they don't listen is that you haven't provided enough variety into helping them see for themselves how they contribute to the goal. Clarity, Clarity. So Brian Tracy wrote a book, if you want a good book on clarity. He wrote a book called the power of Clarity. And from that there's a quote. It says, clarity is essential. Knowing exactly what you want builds your self confidence immeasurably. That I believe this idea of my employees should know them. They just aren't listening. There's this level of clarity confidence that is missing if that isn't happening. Right. Which means you aren't clear enough. When I first stepped into leadership, whenever that was doesn't matter.

When the big hairy, audacious goal of 4 to 10 million was just thrown out there, that got rid of that.

The idea of setting goals. I also was in this myth busting moment of like, I've told what employees, I've told them what the goals are and what we should be striving for. I wasn't showing them and I wasn't providing 20 different milestones and measurables along the journey. Reminders. And even to this day, I set this cool, vivid vision. And something I'm trying to get better is like, how do we constantly know and be reminded of what that vision is? Again, it's not a goal setting framework, but the vivid vision was the start. It's the beginning of the. Of being able for people to see how they fit in to the picture that you're trying to illustrate. Katie, I hope this was extremely helpful. And all the other listeners today on going to an elite status, you can start with. Okay, if that's what you need to start with, you can go to that notable, which means you're getting more specific, you're getting more defined in the goals. But the elite operator knows that it's more than just setting the goal. It's very much so about the vision and the journey and the action and the clarity all along the way. So I hope you took some good notes. Sometimes, as I've always said, it's not what's taught, it's what's caught. And I hope you caught something, Katie and all the other listeners that are going to truly help you today. That's a wrap on today's episode. Thanks for listening.

Thank you.