Operations

Give Team Members Clear Success Targets

Define a small set of clear, measurable targets for each role—so performance is visible, decisions are easier to make, and conversations about results are grounded in shared expectations.

Updated October 20, 2018·8 min read·~6 weeks

Each team member has a small set of clear, visible targets that make it obvious how they're doing and help guide their day-to-day decisions.

Why This Project Matters

Most performance problems aren't about effort or attitude. They're about mismatched expectations.

You had one thing in mind, they had another. They thought they were doing it, and you disagree. Without clear targets, "good performance" is whatever the leader decides it is on any given day — which means team members are constantly guessing, and conversations about performance feel like personal judgments rather than honest assessments.

Success Metrics change that. They define the specific number or observable result that tells both the team member and their manager whether a Key Responsibility is having the impact it's supposed to have. When those targets exist and are visible, a lot of things get easier: team members can self-assess and guide their own priorities, check-ins become more concrete, and when something isn't working, there's a shared starting point for figuring out why.

This is also a cultural practice, not just a management tool. The goal is for team members to own their metrics — to track them, report on them, and use them to make decisions — rather than having leadership monitor performance from above. Some of those individual metrics will naturally roll up into team-level metrics for managers, but the individual targets belong to the team member, not to the Visionary.

Milestones