When Key Results Are Clearly Understood

Recently, we facilitated a group of thirty middle managers from a large consumer products company who came together to discuss the organization’s key results. The division president began the meeting with a presentation on the company’s four major goals, which dealt with revenue, profitability, customer satisfaction, and new product development. An hour into the meeting, three things became very apparent: 1) these middle managers were not accustomed to discussing the organization’s key results, 2) they rarely used the four key results as a framework for prioritizing their daily work, and 3) there was a genuine hunger manifest among the managers for more conversation about how their jobs, responsibilities, teams, projects, and priorities could be better aligned with the organization’s key results.

Would you be surprised if we told you that the foregoing represents a fairly common experience for most organizations? Too many leaders in today’s organizations fail to clearly define, fully disseminate, and adequately discuss the top three or four key results that will ensure their organization’s sustainability. Has your organization defined the key results it must deliver to ensure its sustainability? Do the people in your organization clearly understand these key results? If not, begin changing things today. Your organization’s key results should be meaningful, measureable, and memorable for everyone in the organization. By meaningful, we mean results that can ensure the organization’s sustainability and be readily tied to every employee’s individual role and responsibilities. By measureable, we mean results that can be effectively quantified and frequently checked. By memorable, we mean results that can be easily remembered and regularly used to guide daily actions.

When leaders neglect to define their organization’s key results in a meaningful, measureable, and memorable way for everyone in the organization, accountability suffers—because people don’t have the benefit of knowing exactly what they are accountable to deliver. People who have a crystal clear understanding of their organization’s key results consistently demonstrate higher levels of accountability for achieving those results than do people who have a less clear understanding of their organization’s key results. In our experience, people in organizations hunger for more clarity around key results, because they want to be successful—and they want to take greater accountability for what matters most to their organizations. To learn more about how to create a Culture of Accountability® that focuses on achieving key results, go to www.partnersinleadership.com.