Setting Goals

So the infinite game is not the absence of finite games. You can absolutely have arbitrary goals. And remember, most of the financial goals we set. A few people sat in a room and said, what do we want our annual goal to be? And somebody says, let's make it this number. And somebody goes, no, let's make it this number. And that becomes the number, right? There's nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing. In fact, it's necessary. Human beings are very tangibly driven animals. We like counting things. It's actually important. Can you imagine running a marathon without mile markers? It would actually be unnerving. So metrics help us measure speed and distance, which is very, very important.

But we have to remember that when we hit a metric or don't hit a metric, the game has not been won or lost. They're markers. And that's the important part. So we have to stop thinking about business like a race or a game and start thinking of it like a lifestyle. So, for example, I want to be healthy, right? So there are many things I have to do to be healthy. I have to eat right, I have to exercise. I have to, you know, get enough sleep. I have to nurse my personal relationships. There's probably 15 or 20 other things. Can't do all of those things well all the time. It's a striving. Same in business. We have, you know, we have product, we have marketing, we have sales, we have leadership. Can't do them all, right? All the time. It's a striving. But we can set arbitrary goals. Like, I want to lose X amount of weight by X date, right? And every day I'm gonna stand on the scale. Some days I'll feel good, and some days I'll feel bad. And when I hit my goal, I'm excited.

But the problem is I have to keep exercising for the rest of my life. It hasn't ended simply because I hit a goal. And that's important to recognize. But what I find more interesting is what happens if you miss the goal. And the answer is nothing. Nothing happens. In fact, very often we just miscalculated the time it'll take to achieve it. So if you're doing all the right things and you see the trend data is unpacked, and you just lose that weight a month later or two months later, okay, you're healthier now, even missing the goal than you were before. The bad news, where it gets dangerous is when we're so obsessed with that goal that I'll starve myself and stop drinking water to hit the goal. And I'm actually unhealthy and companies do that. So the goals are good and celebrating the wins are great and there are wins, that's fantastic. But we have to remember that if we miss the goal, the question is what's the trend data like, are we a healthy company? Are we taking care of each other? And I'll just go back a few years ago.

Ginny Romaty.

IBM missed its numbers and Ginnie Romany made an internal video which of course leaked. Made an internal video that was spread out, sent out to the entire IBM that basically shit all over the sales team publicly. And I remember talking to somebody at IBM and I'm like, what's with that video? And they're like, oh, so glad I'm not in sales, right? And basically berated them for missing the numbers. This was the first time IBM had missed its numbers. The first quarter in 69 quarters. And the CEO's response was to berate a team rate entire division right after 69 quarters they missed their first one. Guess what happened after that? Berating of the team and what happened to the culture and guess how many times they missed it after that? It continued. In other words, it's fine, it's fine to miss it. It's a game, it's a long game. So I think that's where we get confused, which is we become obsessed with we missed our numbers once, we're doing fantastic.

You know. So I think that's where it's just about keeping things in perspective. That's where the infinite mindset helps. It's just about perspective.