Why should your company emphasize on setting aspirational goals in your OKR practice and not committed goals?  Organizations set strategic goals to achieve their targets.  In the OKR best practice, there are 2 types of goals: 

  

 Aspirational (Moonshot) Goals vs Committed (Rooftop) Goals Committed goals  sometimes called rooftop  goals 

Aspirational goals sometimes called moonshot  goals 

Committed goals or rooftop goals are the monthly or annual goals that you have established historically.  You have standard metrics or KPIs to measure them.  You know what to expect and what not to expect.  Therefore the name rooftop goal.  

Aspirational goals or Moonshot goals are targets made to go somewhere you have not gone before.  Therefore the name moonshot goal. 

Aspirational goals are stretched in nature slightly out of reach hard to attain, but not unattainable, and not impossible.  The Benefit This will help your teams reach higher. 

Should I set a goal that is pie in the sky then? 

Studies have shown if you set a super hard goal, people will be discouraged and give up. 

This is like lifting weights.  If you are able to bench press 100lbs today, and you want to bench press 200lbs, you would not add 100lbs  immediately.  You would add 10lbs slowly until you reach the  200lbs  goal.  It is no difference in setting strategic goals.  

 By setting goals harder, but not impossible to achieve, it will motivate your teams to think outside of the box, be inspired, and be creative.   

Let’s do an example: 

If your company currently has a sales target for each salesperson to reach $200k a month, then this is a committed goal. 

If you were to set an aspirational goal instead and push your teams to reach new heights, do you set: 

 A – A target of $600,000 which is 300% the current committed goal  

or  

B – A target of $240,000 which is 20% over the current committed goal 

 

 Answer:  You would set a target of $240,000 

 

 Some out-of-the-box solutions that will trigger the improvement could be: 

  1. Can the product team collaborate with the sales team to identify what are customers’ other needs we are not satisfying today? 
  1. Can we expand the product line, i.e. more offerings to customers? 
  1. Get peer teams together and have an alignment day to identify the roadblocks and the solutions to clear them.  This is important.   

Engaging other teams can often bring out the best in solutioning as each team will come from a different angle.   

Studies have shown … setting a goal that is reachable at 60 – 70%… is the sweat spot.   If you set an aspirational goal to increase sales from $200,000 to $240,000 and you achieve $228,000, or 70% of the increased target, you are already ahead of your committed goal. 

Offer support & encourage cross-teams to alignment 

In the example just now, in order for our sales team to meet that 40% jump, you must offer support to drive the desired outcome.  Clear the  roadblocks.  Engage cross-functional teams to work towards … a solution.  Only by support and collaboration can your teams reach new  heights.   

  

In Conclusion 

To reap the benefits of taking your organization to new heights: 

  1. Set aspirational goals and not committed goals.   
  1. Set aspirational goals that are stretched goals.  Slightly … out of reach, but not impossible.   
  1. Get your teams engaged, think outside the box, get them inspired 
  1. Encourage cross-functional teams to collaborate and get different points of view. 
  1. Provide support and help clear the roadblocks 

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