Embrace The Journey đ
Where might you benefit from being a little less goal-driven and a little more journey oriented?
The most successful companies are mission-oriented. They have a relentless focus on their ultimate goals. That focus allows them to scale because their people can make thousands of mutually-reinforcing decisions without brutal levels of either coordination or micromanagement. The stronger the goals, the higher the alignment.
Humans
Organizations are not the only ones with goals. As people, we are goal seeking. As summarized by Berkman in 2018, goals arenât simply the things we want but specifically they are the things that require deliberate (often difficult) action to achieve. Otherwise, why would we call them goals?Â
Since goals are about chasing an outcome that wouldnât happen by itself, they require behavior change. For people who are highly goal oriented (i.e. described as having âunderlying achievement motivationâ), goals are important because they demonstrate ability to perform well in the face of challenge - and they give those people an end-state to measure that success.
Games
The problem is that the ultimate value of a goal is almost always subjective. While a hungry person seeking food understands that their motivation is basic survival, the value of most professional goals is considerably more subjective.Â
For example, we can easily imagine the rabbit hole of meaning and personal values that sits underneath a broad goal like âI want to lead people wellâ.
When we recognize the subjectivity that underlies the goals we care about, we need to consider framing professional life as a game. Specifically, a pursuit undertaken with other people where there are arbitrary definitions of success and rules that everyone is supposed to play by.
When companies establish goals, what theyâre really saying isâŠ
âWeâre going to treat X as though itâs an important objective. Weâll construct our game around that assumption. Please come and play the game with us.â Then they focus on hiring and retaining people who are excited to play that game.
Inclusive Play
Consequently, goal orientation is a double-edged sword.Â
Without specific goals, we simply donât commit to producing things of value to others - which makes it essentially impossible to have a company (or a non-profit, or any other durable structure that people can rely on).
However hyper-goal-orientation also makes it impossible to see the places where our existing goals may be counterproductive.
Specifically, there are two problems hereâŠ
The things people and companies choose to care about change over time. Either you come to care about different things or you refine your understanding of what the existing things are. Your goals will need to change accordingly but a hyper-goal-focus can make you cling to goals past their usefulness. Your adaptability decreases and your path to success becomes brittle.
If you are completely focused on the finishing-line, you may not only fail to enjoy the richness of the journey but youâll also tend to exclude people for whom the journey is the reason they come to work in the first place.
Recently, we were working with a company where the founders were wrestling with a compelling feeling that their mission had to be constructed around a specific goal. Yet personally, as individuals, that goal was the least motivating thing about building the company. What they actually wanted was a company where the experience of doing a notoriously difficult thing was joyful, meaningful and sustaining. They wanted the journey to be amazing and had faith that, with a tiny bit of structure, people on that journey couldnât help but generate value. The precise destination was less important.
To even suggest building a tech company around these sentiments seems like heresy and, yet, embracing these values is already proving differentiating for this particular founding team. To take one example, theyâre attracting different candidates - ones who are more playful, creative and relational - people who naturally pull together when they need support. Those candidates feel like the company âgetsâ whatâs most meaningful to them about work.
Questions To Play With
We have so many professional tools and skills that are all about management and delivery of goals. In that atmosphere, journey-orientation (as opposed to goal-orientation) can feel self-indulgent or unfocused. Yet, recognizing that the goals we set are subjective in the first place can be just enough to give us the space to enjoy the journey more (and to value the people we travel with).
In that spirit, ask yourselfâŠ
Where might you benefit from being a little less goal-driven and a little more journey oriented?
When was the last time you discussed motivation in a 1-on-1? Did you touch on the subject of journey- vs goal-orientation as part of that discussion?
Celebrating milestones is relatively easy. Celebrating the journey itself is harder. How does your team do the latter?
What would it take to create a journey so full of life, play, invention and exploration that you couldnât help but produce value, simply as a side-effect?
There is a lot to unpack here. If youâd like a neutral third-party to help you do that. Grab a coaching introduction call. Weâd love to help.