Are You Failing to Achieve Your Quarterly Goals?

So, you’re not going to reach your quar­ter­ly goals…

Whether peo­ple admit they are fail­ing or don’t admit to it and lie about their results – either way, you’ve got a problem.

Why you may be fail­ing to achieve your quar­ter­ly goals

• Goals aren’t SMART (Spe­cif­ic, Mea­sur­able, Attain­able, Real­is­tic, and Time Bound)
• Peo­ple are too busy, side­tracked or dis­tract­ed from dri­ving the core business
• No sin­gle point of accountability
• Progress and next steps are not reviewed at week­ly meetings.
• No cul­ture of account­abil­i­ty — which often means you don’t have a team full of A‑Players.
• Now, every­one can have a bad quar­ter – but it should be rare. If it’s chron­ic, you have a fun­da­men­tal man­age­ment issue. Oth­er­wise, you need to make sure that tools and sys­tems are in place to enable every­one to focus on the high­est strate­gic priorities.

What you can do before the end of the quarter

1. Call a mini-quar­ter­ly meeting.

• Be trans­par­ent. Iden­ti­fy the root cause of the prob­lem and cre­ate some urgency.
• Reset and repri­or­i­tize based on the time that’s left in the quar­ter. Stop every­thing. Ask ​‘What’s the sin­gle most impor­tant that thing that we’ve got to do?’

2. Ensure your new goals are SMART and crys­tal clear.

• Set a plan that the team will believe in. Doc­u­ment goals clear­ly and ensure that they are SMART, in the end.

3. Look at the right data.

• Look at data every week, day or hour as appro­pri­ate, so that peo­ple can see progress towards their goals – or not – and exe­cute effectively.

4. Meet week­ly to cre­ate accountability.

• Mea­sure and track progress for the top three to five com­pa­ny goals (10 min­utes). For each goal, ask the own­er to share the fol­low­ing, in one to two minutes:

1. What progress has been made?
2. Where are we stuck?
3. What’s next?

If it’s a super-crit­i­cal goal or num­ber, up the ante and put it into dai­ly meet­ing or start a dai­ly meet­ing about it – or call a half-day meet­ing to dig in and work on it, with the team. If you don’t allo­cate more ener­gy and resources, it’s not like­ly to move.

Note: Depart­ment and indi­vid­ual goals should be reviewed month­ly, one-on-one or with the team.

5. Show support

• Offer to work offline to help peo­ple who are stuck, over­whelmed or not mak­ing progress.
• Check in reg­u­lar­ly and cre­ate account­abil­i­ty with a week­ly plan or check­list against which they execute.

Out­source to a meet­ing facilitator

If you’re hav­ing issues cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment of clar­i­ty, account­abil­i­ty and nat­ur­al improve­ment, at your quar­ter­ly meet­ings, out­source a meet­ing facil­i­ta­tor. It’s a key dri­ver to get things done because the meet­ing won’t get can­celed or bumped. It’s why our clients ask us to facil­i­tate their quar­ter­ly and annu­al meetings.

The Chal­lenge

• If you’re achiev­ing all your quar­ter­ly goals, con­grat­u­la­tions! Make sure you and your team cel­e­brate your success.
• If you’re fail­ing to achieve your quar­ter­ly goals, what can you do to cre­ate a reset and your chances of success?

Want to hear more? Lis­ten to Episode 101 of The Growth Whisperers.

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.