Why your goal planning process is broken and how taking inspiration from nature can help fix it.
Goal planning is one of those company processes that despite constant tinkering and tool changes never seems to be quite right. There are many reasons why I think this is the case (some of which I’ll cover in future posts), but the one I’ve started thinking about most recently is possibly the most startlingly obvious but most often ignored. Most goal planning sessions don’t actually take account of all the work that needs to be done.
There are several factors which contribute to this work denial:
The Shopping Cart Effect: Despite knowing we should ruthlessly prioritise and narrow focus to increase our chances of succeeding, goal planning season is one of those few times where we can, and are encouraged to, ask for anything we want. The temptation to put all new shiny ideas into our collective shopping baskets is strong and teams can often end up with hastily scoped wish lists that become committed to-do lists without much for-thought as to how the work will all be done.
The Sewer Effect: Sewers are essential infrastructure required for modern societies to function and yet most of us never think or appreciate all the work that goes into building, maintaining and upgrading them until something goes terribly wrong. A lot of work is similar and falls under the radar in goal planning. Nobody shouts about the processes that aren’t glamorous but essential (most ops functions fall into this category), until they break.
The Vacuum Effect: Goal planning takes place in a semi-static state (like those science experiments conducted in a vacuum), where while we all know the environment will change (as it always does in startups), we don’t account for this when setting the goals themselves. When setting goals there is often an outward adherence to Yoda’s philosophy (“do…or do not, there is no try”), while internally knowing there is an element of “terms and conditions apply”.
With all of this in mind, how can we get better at recognising all the work that needs to be done to create more realistic goals during the planning process?
I’ve started thinking about the work that needs to be done as a garden. You may recall from some long forgotten geography class (or for any fellow former civil engineers out there - soil mechanics 101), that gardens aren’t just the visible portion of lawn and shrubbery we see on top. They consist of bedrock, groundwater and multiple layers of soil, all of which impact the visible organic layer we see.
So how does this translate to work?
The bedrock is your hard foundation. It is the work that needs to be done, otherwise your company will pretty quickly cease to function. It’s the AWS bill that needs to be paid, the monthly payroll that needs to be processed, the compliance reports that need to be sent to regulators. This work will never be a shiny OKR or your company's key focus. You can aim to automate and outsource as much of it as possible but regardless it is the non-negotiable work that must be done and someone is going to have to spend some time doing it. Identifying your bedrock tasks will help more accurately gauge your own or your team's capacity before committing to goals e.g. a Finance team might spend 50% of their time on bedrock work while other teams will spend virtually none.
The groundwater and soil layers are the less visible structures that power your organisation. It’s everything that is required to bring the things you want to sell or ship (let’s call them flowers in this case) to life. It’s the ideation, the research, the operational processes, the upgrading of legacy systems that are creaking. It’s also the coaching of an individual in a 1:1, the nurturing of team dynamics and the harmonising of the interpersonal parts of the business that are critical for its success. These are the metaphorical seeds you need to plant and the nutrient density you need to maintain. Similar to soil profiles, some layers (types of tasks) will be easier to work through than others. Some you will have more control over (you can decide which pebbles/long term scaling blockers, if any to leave untouched or remove), while others, such as that pesky rising groundwater, you will have limited control over and yet could topple your business (think of unexpected rapid growth leading to churning customers due to poor support experiences delivered by an overburdened team or a key system provider deprecating support for a core piece of infrastructure that’s essential to your product). This is sometimes the work that is ignored as it is often not glamorous, sometimes unknown, or else is a monster of a problem that would deflect resources from the more publicly appreciated ships. When figuring out the soil goals to set, consider a longer term horizon and identify the foundational work that needs to be done. There isn’t likely going to be a big bang dopamine-inducing ship at the end of the quarter but it will likely pay dividends in the months/years ahead.
The organic layer is the work that the outer world sees. Think of it as your flower bed. It’s the sales targets reached, the new products shipped, the rebrand completed. It looks good, it feels good and this work is often the reason your company exists in the first place. However, like any garden, plant too many flowers and some may not get what they need to grow. How much of this work you can do largely depends on 1) the size of the team (while certainly not linear, more people usually equals more output), 2) the quality of your foundational structures (do you have the systems in place to scale) and 3) external factors, such as changes in the market or customer roadmap requests, which like the weather that impacts your flowers, are sometimes predictable, occasionally catastrophic, and often reactively responded to. This is likely the type of work you’ll want to do as unlike soil type tasks it tends to have a defined end point which offers a sense of satisfaction. When figuring out which goals to work on, identify which are the must haves vs nice to haves, which you realistically have the structure and team in place to be able to grow it, then distribute resources accordingly. Commit to getting the goals done but also accept that things might change. Beware of the ones that deep down are just vanity projects that will wilt quickly and won’t deliver long term value.
I heard the quote above recently which really resonated with me. Like everything in nature, very few things are permanent fixtures and many things can’t be controlled. When deciding which goals to undertake, decide if it’s the best season to do so and take advantage of the situations that already have momentum and are in flow. Remember that all layers of work are valuable and should be accounted for when goal planning, as often the work that is most impactful is in those deeper unseen layers that takes time to bloom.