What should you track for success of your goals?

Posted on April 03, 2022 by Johncey George, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

It is important for leaders to track the progress of goals.

But how do leaders know which actions influence the progress towards goals? These actions are called Lead Measures.

In their book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution, the authors mention lead measures in great detail.

Let me try to summarize the concept for you.

For any goal, there are 2 kinds of measures – LAG measure and LEAD measure
- A LAG measure is the measurement of the result you are trying to achieve.
- A LEAD measure is something which is predictable and influenceable which can help achieve the LAG measure.

Here is a Professional Example

You want your Customer Satisfaction to be 90%. 90% is your LAG measure.
Typically, the metric focus is on the rating that is received and how the needle is moving. But what and how customers actually rate is beyond our control.

What is predictable and influenceable in your organization? It could be measures like having adequate team members to work on various shifts, creating knowledgebase articles which can fast-track resolutions, conducting training programs to help the customer support engineers, auditing measures such as compliance to processes, time taken to resolve an issue, resolution at Level 1 instead of Level 2 etc.

One Personal Example below.

You want to reduce your weight from 90kg to 80kg.

80kg is your Lag measure. The LEAD measure are those that contribute to/influence the weight reduction.

What can influence the weight reduction? The calorie intake and the calories burnt. If you can monitor your calories so that you know your intake, if you try to burn more calories through regular exercise and reduce your calorie intake, these measures will contribute positively to your goal of weight reduction in most situations.

So whether you focus on professional goals in your department/company/organization or on personal goals in your life, break them down in such a way that you can identify.

This makes it easier for you to track and achieve your goals.

Author: Johncey George is an International Coach Federation Certified Leadership and Life Coach. He focus on fast-tracking the career of introvert professionals and help business owners develop leadership talent within the organization.