Hello, and welcome to the Moonshot's Master Series. It's episode 16. I'm your co host, Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Mike. It is the favorite time of the month as we kick off and release a brand new episode in the Master series.
It certainly is, and it is all about shooting for the moon, isn't it?
That's right. Listeners and subscribers today, just for you guys, we are releasing a brand new episode today. We're diving into the idea of leadership, but specifically the idea of goals, goal setting, goal creation, and holding yourself accountable to those goals. This is a pretty big, but also very enticing and energizing topic, wouldn't you say, Mike?
It's a bit of a sleeper, isn't it? Mark? Like you, when you think about setting goals, you're like, Really, guys, a whole master series? Could you really stretch it that far? And the answer is, Mark, you certainly can, because setting goals, what you're about to discover on this show, our 16th master series, is that setting goals is good for you, good for your peers, colleagues, teammates, maybe even family members too.
It helps you know what everyone's doing, what everyone's striving for. But it creates a common language from around which we can collaborate. We can support each other. Honestly, Mark, after preparing for this show, I didn't realize there was so much in goal setting, did you? No.
No, I didn't either. I think it's one of those, as you say, it's a sleeper hit almost.
It's a concept and a task and a behavior that I would argue we've all grown up with you. The idea of working towards a target or having an end moment in sight, whether it's an exam or a race or a destination. Maybe it's a holiday. Maybe it's something that you wanna go out and achieve from your own personal development.
It's something that we all underst. For me, Mike, again, as we were preparing for today's show and I stepped back and looked at the way I function as an individual in society and so on, I definitely have deprioritized the concept of setting goals. It isn't necessarily something I do outside of work.
It's not something that I necessarily would revisit from a personal perspective until now. And I think today we're gonna delve into all these ideas of setting goals and understanding the value that they can bring. And me, Mike, as we were preparing for this show, it really struck me just how, not only important, but also valuable, a goal setting behavior and setting in the framework and the mechanics to go out and leverage them and use them correctly.
Really is.
I agree. And I think about what. Really good to call out here is what is the enemy we are facing here? And I think what happens is once we become young adults, it can be full of gusto and goals, maybe buying your first car, these kinds of things. I think what tends to happen, certainly if I look at my own life and those around me, is once you become quite competent in life, the, you get a little bit casual with setting goals, once you've moved out of home, once you have your first car, maybe even once you get your first house.
But you know what, goals can be applied every month, every week, every day. And I. This show, if it does anything, Mark will reignite the fires to jump into a world of goal setting for yourself, for the people around you, and for getting everyone to sail in the same direction, to have a common language about what we're trying to get done.
It truly is a way to wake up a little bit, to revitalize, to get those engines burning. And I think it's a really deep process of accountability if you really embrace what we're about to go through for the next hour. It is all about holding yourself and others accountable to their dreams, goals, and ambitions.
Because when you stretch, when you shoot for the moon, you really do have the chance of being the best version of yourself. So we need to light the fires Mark. We need to get those engines. Roar. Where do we
start? We are gonna start today, Moonshot's members with a little dose of inspiration to help us appreciate and understand why it is crucial to help yourself choose the right goals for the right reasons.
So let's kick off today with John Doerr, who wrote, Measure What Matters On How in Business as well as our personal lives. OKRs goal setting can really rock the foundation of some of the biggest companies in the world. So let's hear from John Duo. Kick us off with how Bono Google and the Gates Foundation use OKRs.
What's crucial is choosing the right audacious goals for the right reasons. And I think there's never been a more important time for that than now. Let me tell you what OKRs. First, it's a kind of geeky acronym, but what it stands for is objectives and key results. Objectives are what you want to have accomplished, and key results are how you're gonna get it done.
It's a deceptively simple goal setting system that was invented by Andy Grove in the 1970s to help make Intel the best run technology company of his or maybe any era. He was a superb ceo. And also a teacher. And so when I first came to Intel, Andy said to me, John, it almost doesn't matter what you know, and that's because execution is what matters most.
And so he invented this amazing system for execution and valued it far more highly than anything else results. Did you get your key results done or not done? Did you achieve the objective? OKRs pioneered at Intel. Subsequently I took 'em to maybe a hundred different organizations. I introduced them to Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old in their garage as co-founders of Google.
I showed them the system and Sergey Brynn enthusiastically agreed to adopt it. Not quite . What he actually said was, We don't have any other way to manage the company, so I guess we'll give this a try. And I took that as a ringing endorsement. But here's the point. Every quarter since then, every Google has written down her objectives and key results.
They've graded them, and then they've published them for everybody in the organization to see. So 70,000 Googlers are doing that this quarter. Then, quite remarkably, they take these objectives and key results and put 'em aside. They don't count for bonuses, they don't count for promotions. They serve a higher purpose.
They're a kind of collective commitment, a social contract to what's important and what really matters the most. In, in the words of the founders, they can't imagine running Google without them. I dream that they will affect our schools. Perhaps our hospitals, even our government's OKRs, can make a difference.
On the personal front I had a goal not so many years ago. It was something about getting more intimacy in our family. My real motive was to make sure that the girls grew up strong-willed, independent and happy. And I read and believed that having dinner together as a family would make a difference.
So my key result was to be home for dinner 20 nights a month by 6:00 PM and to be fully present, which meant actually we had to turn off the router. The smartphones wouldn't work, and that I want you to know was a tough goal to achieve. I probably hit it 70% of the time. I'd like the readers of this book to ask the following questions: Do you have the right metrics and goals in your life?
Do you have goals in your life? What are your values, your objectives, and your key results?
Oh, do you have goals? Do you have the right goals? Do you have the values that are gonna get you there? We just got those big questions from John Doer, who is apart from a very successful author. He is one of the key guys at Kliner Perkins in Menlo Park, California, one of the greatest venture capital firms as well.
What I find so appropriate is when he gave an example of these OKRs, it was having dinner together as a family. This is the power of setting objectives. So whether you are Google, whether you are Bono, or whether you are a family, it doesn't matter. It is the commitment to getting things done, the commitment to the outcomes of those things.
And I think in this, if you want to shoot for the moon, if you want to be the best version of yourself, you must practice the idea of setting objectives and the key results not only. For your business or your company or your project that you work on. But I also think you should have goals for your personal life, and they can be as beautiful and simple as having dinner together as a family.
Mark, how did you process some advice from a truly capable person?
You're right, truly capable. Is John Deere all over? I totally resonated with the idea of creating personal goals and holding myself accountable to them because I can see the value of this type of behavior, this type of vision setting almost within a business orientated environment.
But I love the fact that John. Take us over the fence. He's calling out. You might appreciate and know this idea of OKRs, this idea of goal setting with a business oriented mindset. But the truth is, if you can bring it into your personal life even better. And I think what really stood out to me within.
The clip that we've just heard was actually the value that can come from creating good goals, and that's that social commitment. And I think if I was to relate social commitment to business as John do did in that clip, it keeps the entire business of Google accountable. They will feel like they're working in the same direction.
At the same time though, if you then apply this idea of social commitment to what John was trying to do at home, I'm gonna spend time with my family, have dinners. What probably happened, and he doesn't go into it, but it probably also had an impact on his family. They probably saw the intention that he had the drive that he wanted to try and put into place.
And I would argue that also motivates those around us when we have goals in mind. If that was his intention, it's likely that it spilled over a little bit and had a bit of a halo effect for the rest of the family too. So I guess my build that I'm trying to do here is the fact that it is not only for the individual to understand where they're going and what they're trying to achieve, but it also helps everybody around you stay on that same page as well, don't you think?
I think it's all about getting, staying and living that page. What I think you said it really was that social commitment together, and I tell you, We have got over 50 people that have a social commitment to us for which we are super grateful, Mark, and I think it is only appropriate that given that this is a master series exclusively for members and subscribers, I think we need the official concerts of horns and trombones to celebrate our members on Patreon.
That's right. Please. Let me just unpack the special goal setting, trumpet. Oh yes. It's still in tune. That's good. So members, these shows or the Master series are all for you, so please accept our drum roll and roll call for Bob, John, Terry, Ken and Dmar, our annual subscribers who have been with us since the beginning, as well as Marja and Connor, Rodrigo and Yasmin, Lisa, Sid, Mr.
Bonura and Paul Berg and Cowman. David and Joe Crystal, Ivo Christian and Hurricane Brain, Sama, Kelly, Barbara and Andre, Matthew, Eric, Abby, Andie, Joshua, Chris, Deborah and Lase. Steve Craig, Lauren and Javier. Daniel, Andrew Rav and Yvette. Karen Raul, PJ Alta. Ola and Ingram. Whew. Mike, these master series, we're gonna have to make them a bit longer so I can, fully do the proper roll call right.
Mike? I think we should just have a separate show for all the members and the roll call. What do you think? . That's right. That's right .
So listen, very grateful to all of you who are tuned in right now, our members and subscribers. Thank you so much. We do appreciate your support. It is crucial for us in order to pull the show together to use all the different software that we use.
And we can only say thank you. Thank you. And as we now turn our mind to this. Idea of setting goals and understanding what it can truly unlock in our lives. Why not turn to the world of sports? But this time, let's go to an Olympian, a gold medal winning Olympian, who you might not know but has the most amazing story, and it's all about goals.
Hi, I'm 2000 Olympic gold medalist, Laura Wilkinson, and today I wanna talk to you about the importance of setting goals. I know it may sound simple, even trivial, but goal setting is the most crucial aspect in actually achieving your goals. If you don't have a goal or a dream that you're striving for, aiming at, working toward the world is just gonna pass you by.
Like you're standing still, You're not gonna accidentally do great things you have to want to do. When you have a goal or a dream, it gives your life purpose, meaning direction. Life doesn't have to just happen to you. You can learn to live it intentionally. I always dreamed of winning an Olympic gold medal and it became my goal, and without that, I never would've achieved it.
Any Olympic athlete will tell you, you're not gonna accidentally make the Olympic team. You are not gonna accidentally just happen to win an Olympic gold medal one day. Sure, there's always a lot of factors at play, but in every situation there was hard work, determination and perseverance toward that goal that got them there.
My coach, Kenny Armstrong, loves to say, Setting challenging goals creates a fear of failure, but setting no goals guarantees it. Start by making your goal real. Write it down, even if it seems ridiculously out of reach to you. Write it down. Look at it every single day. Start to believe that it's possible.
When you practice something daily, it becomes routine, habit, and tangible. It starts to become real after a while. It's not gonna feel so out of reach anymore before a dream ever has a chance at becoming reality. You have to believe that it can be. You have to want to make it a reality. And yes, it's true. We don't always reach our goals, dreams.
They don't always come true, but sometimes dreams do come true, and that makes them worth fighting for, Worth going after. What's your dream? What's your goal? Go write it down,
Mike. Before we delve into the treasure trove. That Laura Wilkinson has provided for us there around goals. I just wanna set the scene a little bit and tell you as well as our members, a little bit more about Laura, if you don't mind specifically, how much she has gone on to do what A lot of critics were saying were impossible, and I believe that the way that she ended up being able to do it was through the case that we just heard with regards to setting goals.
So Laura Wilkinson overcame many obstacles as she went into being an Olympic diving champion. In fact, shortly before the 2000 Olympic trials, she shattered her right foot in an accident,
absolutely shatter. But can you believe that her story is crazy? Just before the trial, she shatters her foot and she's a diver.
And when you think about a diver, they run up and they do that bounce. Yeah. On their feet, like all that pressure on their ankles. And then they have to jump off. And she shattered her foot. And then Mark, when she turned up in Sydney in 2000 for the Olympics, what was the result?
Gold
boom started in eighth place, did what everybody said was impossible with a broken foot during the Olympics, and she won gold. And the lessons that we were hearing from Laura just then, I believe, encapsulate a lot of the positivity and the value that I think we are trying to communicate with regards to goal setting, isn't it?
, the, one of the main things that I scribbled down and I've been reflecting on as we were pulling the show together over the past few days is the fact that if you don't have goals, you are guaranteed to. If you are there, there will be happy accidents throughout your life. But no Olympians have ever necessarily accidentally won gold
They have all gone out with a single minded focus, a goal that involves training plans, nutrition practice, but this focus, this single minded approach, this knowledge that I'm gonna work towards, one idea that does not guarantee failure. What that might do is enable you to go out and be successful. But without having anything written down, without having any intention, any goal in mind, that is where you will fail.
And I think that's a really valuable little lesson.
Don't you think? It really is. The amount of cross references that I'm having right now to previous shows is crazy. Let's just go tangential for a moment. Bill Gates, one of his underlying mantras. You get what you measure. I want you to think about Michael Jordan when we did the show with him.
Are you of any doubt that he is single minded about winning the NBA finals? And he did. So a record number of times the amount of thoughts about Ross Edgeley swimming around England. like these people use the goal to drive them, to motivate and to push them forward. And I love this idea that we mentioned, but if you don't have goals, how on earth do you think you're going to be successful?
Fire, coincidence, Luck. A good turn of fate. Yeah. Like it's almost equally as powerful to say to yourself Of course I will never achieve what I want, whether it's specific or abstract. If I don't write it down, my bill would be to write it down and tell people about it. Yeah. Alright. And one of the techniques I love to do is to write down my goals.
I even have recorded my goals as a little mantra, and I listen to it every morning while I stretch. That's nice. So I'm constantly reinforcing to myself at a subconscious level, visualizing and bringing to life those goals. So I think of this idea of writing it down, telling someone, saying it out loud every day. I know some people really promote the idea of saying your goals.
Into the mirror and looking at yourself while you say your goals. This idea of manifestation visualization. . Matt, what do you think are some of the most effective ways to remind yourself of your goals and to almost embed them deep into your subconscious?
If I link back to the John Do clip, we heard at the beginning of today's master series episode, this idea of making them public, I think translates quite nicely from a business perspective as well as this personal approach that you are building upon.
And I think so. Big takeaway for me with regards to, either thinking about it from a work perspective or a personal life perspective, is the fact that when you do share them, whether you write them down, maybe you're sharing only with yourself. So you can write it down, you can listen to recordings like mantra, It holds you accountable.
So for me, my practice of making sure that I'm perhaps either on track or utilizing my goals is to have conversations with people about them. So if I'm using work as an example, we'll review them as a team. I'll make sure to see how I'm tracking them. And I'll know pretty quickly if I'm trying to communicate them to a colleague, let's say, Oh, I'm a little bit behind here.
Or Actually, that isn't something I've really focused on at all. And then that exposes an area that I should probably go and work on a little bit more. So if I translate that then into something that's a little bit more personal, something that I could do at home, again, maybe it's Laura visualizing winning gold.
It's talking to her trainers, it's talking to her individuals that inspire her mentors, and if they are aware of those goals that she's got in mind, then I think it's gonna be a little bit easier for Laura or any of us to hold ourselves accountable and go out and do the extra mile, the extra bit of work in order to try and be that, let's say, best version of ourselves that's closer to creating or reaching that objective.
That, for me, Mike, I think is the big takeaway. This idea of transparency, the idea of sharing it with others, I think is where you can really bring an extra level of value because you are. Opening yourself up to feedback or as Kim Scott would've said in one of our series. Radical Candor.
Yeah. And I think it just helps you keep yourself accountable, because let's be honest, self-accountability is the hardest thing because you can dream something, not tell anyone. So then when you don't make it, nobody knows, do they ?
This is exactly it. And this is, reminding me of James Clear with Atomic Habits as well.
If you want to go out, reach that goal. Let's say the goal is a marathon or having, no let's stick with John Doer having dinner with your family. You just need to do it maybe once. Maybe you don't even reach dinner on the first day. Maybe it's just a cup of tea, maybe it's just a hello, a conversation.
And gradually over time, it compounds. And I would argue that this idea of goals is pretty similar, isn't it? Once you start, then gradually it might become that little bit easier. You'll get a little bit more comfortable being uncomfortable. Maybe you'll get the courage to say it out loud, so that people can start holding you accountable to it.
Totally. I think the the side note, as all of our subscribers and our members are thinking to themselves, Oh boy, I haven't written down some goals for a while, , and everyone's having this realization as they listen to this show, I would strongly recommend head over to moonshots.io where you can get the full, deep and complete show notes to this show this master series on setting goals.
Everything we talk about, you can get links to the clips, the tools, the templates, everything is there. Head to moonshots.io. And as you are switching now into the realization, Hey, goals matter, setting objectives really matter. Let's go deeper now we're about to go and listen to two clips, the first of which is from Christina Woodkey and one of the really great experts on OKRs.
And she's gonna teach us not only how you set it for yourself, but how you can empower people around you and how you can create OKRs to flow through the organization.
So how do you flow OKRs through or down across an organization that
big? Yeah, you. You don't. There was this answer . I end up hearing a lot of stories about OKRs for some reason.
And I was told the story about when there was a CEO who really believed in OKRs, who went to Yahoo and, but also was a little bit of someone who wanted a lot of control. And so this individual wanted to check every single department's OKRs, but at that scale it took about a month plus, which meant that four times a year the people were in limbo.
They weren't sure what they should do, they didn't know what their targets were. And this certainly didn't serve Yahoo, which is a company that is very dear in my heart having been there and Yahoo days which I, back in the original Yahoo people What you have to do is hide really well, fire very swiftly, give constant feedback.
And then if you have these amazing people who are constantly becoming more amazing, the company can set their OKRs and they can trust everybody else to do alignment. And again, I was talking about it as I looked at the company, asking myself, what am I gonna do? , if it's a department it should be like a 24-hour turnaround.
Like people give themselves too much time to get in their heads. So it's okay, we're hitting the end of the quarter. We're gonna call the OKRs. I'm sorry, I know you're convinced you're gonna get that one sale that's gonna make you next week, but tough. We're calling 'em right now. We're doing our learning, we're doing our retrospectives.
Okay. We're gonna set it and hopefully the company will set it very quickly and everybody else can say, What does this mean to me? And that does mean that there might be some moments where the head of a business unit has to talk to a team and say Your OKR doesn't quite match ours, but that's actually faster than looking at every single one and saying, We'll get back to you with feedback.
It's better to say, if we don't get back to you within a week, go to town. It's on us. It's our fault, and we trust you to make good decisions. You gotta let go and letting go is really hard and people have time being let go. Not in the fire way, but I, again, I'm gonna, speak to you as a vc.
I have a couple of really good friends who are in the investing space and they say, sometimes startups are looking for a boss. They just want somebody to tell them it's okay to do this and it's not okay to do that. And a VC's not your boss. They're the person who believes in you and is betting on you.
It means you have to learn how to be your own boss, which means that when somebody comes to you, the manager, and says to you, Okay what should my OKRs be? You have to sit back and go. What do you think they should be? You just have to keep turning it around until people start building the habit of being empowered.
Mike, we're now getting into the juicy information and details as well as how to really understand the value that I think goal setting can bring. And what I'm hearing from Christina Wood in that clip is this idea of empowerment, ownership, but also trust that can exist within a business once you set good goals.
Yeah. I think the other thing she's saying is that OKRs enable you to trust the process. To say to folks, Listen, set clear goals that are based on the company's goals and vision and go for it. Share them with each other, Work with each other. And what she was referring to is you do not have to be micromanaging of these OKRs, and particularly a team that's had a couple of quarters of OKRs should largely be able to self-organize this because they appreciate the benefits that come with Oks so much that they're happy to do them, they're happy to share them, refine them together and so forth.
You don't have to push this through an organization. In fact, create a culture where it's naturally pulled out of the organization. People want to contribute to it. And I think then you get the right sense of. Empower those around you. Don't control them, empower them. I think it could be very tempting in our excitement to embed OKRs into an organization that they almost become a control factor.
And I think the emphasis is to let people establish goals that contribute the most value to the company and the company's vision, or the team or the family. Go back to John. Duh. Family goals. No problem there. I think the key thing here is don't get too caught up in the system. Another thing that she was saying is do them quickly.
Don't overthink this crack. Get on with it because it's in the doing. It's in the daily habits, which we are big fans of here at the Moonshots Master Series. It's in the daily habits that make them come true. It's in the hard work that makes them come true. So I think it's really about. It's an unimaginable benefit to setting goals and in particular OKRs, is that you can empower people around you.
You don't have to micromanage them cuz they will happily manage themselves. Whew, that one's big. Oh,
It's big isn't it? But, and I think just building on something you've just said, which I really think is the delay that probably puts us off a lot of us to actually commit and think and stick to goals is because the time doesn't feel right.
Oh, I don't want to, I wanna spend lots and lots of time. I wanna get it right. I wanna make sure I understand it. I want to make sure I can stick to it. I think the key call out there is, as you've just said, just do it. Get something down, like a habit like James Clear you can improve them.
Maybe it's week by week, quarter by quarter, but regardless, just commit something. And then utilize it, learn from it, test it, see whether it works, see how close you get, see whether it is relevant and at a priority after all. I think one of the big things that is coming out through the show so far, Mike, is this idea of prioritization, isn't it?
I wanna prioritize spending time with my family. I wanna prioritize creating a way of working where everybody knows what I'm focusing on and therefore it brings the company or brings the focus into one single direction. And I think Christine is making the case there to say, Don't delay, just go out and do it.
Because once you do create them, suddenly you feel more empowered.
Of course. Yeah. I mean it's a huge breakthrough because I think. I think we're all fighting a battle for our attention and our energy. And sometimes the daily grind can consume so much that you're so stuck in the day to day that you're never working on things.
You're never stepping back and saying, What direction am I going in? You're just too busy just going. You're like the hamster and you're running and you're running and you can lose balance. And this next clip from Expert Program Management is all about the intersection of keeping your balance and self assessment.
It is really important to keep your balance through the first 90 days while you're trying to do so much. And this section is all about regularly performing a self assessment to ensure you're not falling into a personal trap at work. So including things like going off in all directions, it's not gonna be possible to focus on others if you can't focus yourself.
unfunded boundaries. Now, if you don't define your boundaries, what you are prepared to do and are not prepared to do, then people are gonna take whatever you have to give brittleness. Now, this means don't over commit to a course of action so that you can't change your mind if things start to go badly.
Isolation. To be effective, you have to be connected to people who can make action happen. Bias, judgment. So for example, confirmation bias whereby you focus only on factors that confirm your beliefs or maybe work avoidance, and that's where you avoid taking the bull by the horns and making those difficult decisions, and in turn, that makes you know tough problems, tougher.
And finally going over the top, basically working too hard and being too stressed. So you go beyond peak performance and you start to go downhill and move towards burnout. So those are the traps, but how do you avoid them?
You can adopt success strategies and that's the bunch of strategies we've already discussed today. You can enforce personal disciplines and that means things like, devoting time weekly to planning two, a planning and evaluation cycle. Try not to make spur of the moment commitments that you might later regret.
Set aside time for actually doing hard work cuz it's so easy to get distracted day to day with emails and people knocking on your door. It means things like if you find yourself getting too caught up in the emotional side of difficult decisions. , take time out to look at the big picture. And finally, it means, if you find yourself alienating people, even though you have really great ideas that you want to get implemented, then you know, make some time and create a plan of how you're gonna go about influencing people.
And the final point is it's important to build your support systems. And this means, stabilizing everything at home because, it's a fundamental rule of warfare not to fight battles on too many fronts. And it also means, thinking about how you're gonna build your advice and council network.
That was expert program management. Diving into Michael D. Watkins is the first 90 days, and I think Mike, what he's really calling out there, which I think is perfect for this idea of setting goals and understanding how we can go out and utilize them and make the most value out of them, is this idea of avoiding those traps and this idea of focus, this idea of empowerment, this idea of deep work seems to be really coming through in a lot of this proposition around goals, doesn't it?
This idea of being able to say no to the things that do not ladder up to your goals. You can politely decline. Maybe it's other work, maybe it's social commitments even because you want to stay at home and have dinner with your family. You can make a guilt-free decision based on what those goals are.
It's interesting, there's great wisdom around the idea of goal setting and priority setting. And success is equally about what you say yes to as it is what you say no to. And I think that becomes super interesting as another benefit, an unintended consequence of setting good goals. You're often very focused on what you are going to do, but equally it gives you the capacity to define and manage what you're saying no to.
A great example. I was invited to speak on a podcast and I really like the host. But it was on a topic that was a bit of a stretch for me. And they had reached out to me and said, Hey, will you join us as a guest on the podcast? And I said just hang on a second. My, my question would be like, what angle do you see here?
Because I'm not really in your space. I don't really have much understanding of technology. And do you know the funny thing, what do you think happened?
I dunno, Mike, are you gonna leave the Moonshot family? ? ?
Oh, absolutely not. They didn't even answer me. Oh, you're kidding. . So just wait for this. So I had a, I had this kind of thinking that we were hearing just in that clip in my mind.
And when someone asked me to be on this show, I was like, Oh geez. Like they were just hunting for guests, and I thought it was a bit odd that they had asked me. So I was just like, instead of being like, Oh, yay, they've been asked to be on a show, I just said, Hey, before, before we commit to anything, what can I offer the show?
You are really into a particular type of technology, which is a bit different. I'm more of a product discovery guy, strategy guy. And they didn't even answer. What does that tell you about how serious they were about having me on the show? Yeah think about this, Mark. If they had said to me, Wow, we really want to have someone who's not in our technology on the show talking about the pros and cons from an outsider's point of view, or we wanna compare it to other technologies, then you know what I might have said yes.
Yeah. But just simply that question saved me two or three hours. How good is that Just by asking them to tell me exactly why. Challenging it a little bit.
And I think this, the build I can do on that is, when you are in your day job you're gonna get lots of different distractions, whether it's emails, notifications, or actually colleagues coming up and asking you to do things.
Hey, do you wanna appear on this podcast? Do you wanna do this? Do you wanna help me on this other project? Oh, I really need you to go and deliver X, Y, or z. And therefore, as we know, and it's a big topic that we dive into on the Moonshot Show as well as the master series, this idea of being focused and removing distractions and doing your best work.
This idea of cow Newport and deep work. I think where I can relate goals to being of real value when I'm at work is that ability to pause and say, Hang on, wait a second. Does this sit with my expertise? Am I the right person to join this podcast? Does it help me meet my goals? Because if it doesn't suddenly.
I can say no, or I cannot get my hopes up, or I can question it a little bit deeper. I think you are right, Mike. It's a great demonstration or a story that brings this to life because you had the foresight to say let's have a think about this. Is it actually going to make a difference?
Is it gonna matter? Is it going to be appropriate? And not only you realized that perhaps maybe the other side of the team also considered it. I think for me, when I'm, thinking about my day ahead and what I've, what I'll go out and do for the rest of this quarter, it will be thinking about how I can, say no or at least question the things that I'm being asked to work on to see whether or not it is in fact totally app.
Yeah, because it's very easy these days. So just think about it. Somebody I'd met years ago reaches out to me, says, Be on a podcast. How easy was it, Mark, for me to go, Hey, yeah, cool. I'll be on your podcast, but I would be sacrificing time and energy. Which just as an example, if you said that, that was a three hour investment of my time, I'd much rather spend that on this podcast rather than their podcast.
Yeah. Now, the fact that they didn't even answer the email that I sent, tells you everything, and I'm so delighted that they didn't answer because I know. It wasn't a serious request. I know there wasn't really a good match and I saved that time and energy to use elsewhere. I think that's like this time and energy becomes easier to manage when you've got clear objectives.
You mentioned making time for deep work. A huge theme of our show. If you wanna be the best version of yourself, you have to plan your deep work. I think the other thinking that is really important to touch upon that we heard in that clip is we should be zooming out and planning our week and our month.
One of the things I do, mark, is I write down the key dates for usually the next. Two months or so every week. So for example I have a couple of big meetings tomorrow. The day after that I'm traveling. And then the day that I come back from travel, I have a big lunch meeting. And then the day after the lunch meeting, I know that I have someone coming into town, a family member from a different state.
These things are really in my mind. I can just chat about them on the show with great clarity because I write down my key dates every single Monday so that I'm super aware of what's happening in my life. Because as you can hear, it's actually quite a busy period for me. But the thing is, I'm taking control of my life.
I'm pining for my life in order to hit my objectives. What has happened to me in the past if I don't do these sorts of things, Ma, if you get to Tuesday, Wednesday and go, Holy hell, I've got so much on I didn't realize. So I know, just as an example, I have to have a very productive day today, but I also need to do some rest because I have a big call at 9:00 PM tonight with the uk.
Now, these insights come from planning and reflection, and those, I believe are very coupled, directly linked to setting your goals and your objectives. So's my question for you, Mark. What are your favorite planning and reflection practices and habits that help you realize your goals?
Yes. I love this question and I've got a series of approaches.
But I think this one, because I quit to test, I like to try and see which one works best. So whether it's digital, whether it's verbal, whether it's post-it notes or whiteboards, , I think my house is full of test subjects. I suppose you could say, Mike. I think for me, the way that I'm able to understand and therefore prioritize and try to be efficient with the way that I'm spending and utilizing my time and energy is by looking at what I've got coming up.
And trying to step away from the immediate deliverables. So I had this case the other day. In fact, I've got quite a busy time trying to deliver a lot of work. And it's one of those moments when you're confused which way's up should I be working on this item or that item?
This item means it's gonna impact this one over here, but at the same time, I don't want to spend all my time on this area because it's not as results driven. And instead, I had to step back. I had to say, Okay, what actually?'' Is going to matter. What is actually going to be actionable right now?
What do I need to say no to in order to free up some time and free up some energy? Because I know what happens. I'm old enough to know that if I travel down a particular street, a particular path for too long, I'll be knackered so the work will suffer and I'll be distracted. So for me it's a real combination of ending my day, no matter what time it is, whether it's 9:00 PM, 10:00 PM or 5:00 PM or not that I finished at 5:00 PM for a while, you get my idea and writing down what I need to do tomorrow.
So where have I, what have I accomplished today? Right now let me remind myself, okay, this is my priorities and the first thing I'll do when I wake up is look at that list and I'll say, Okay, actually I forgot this. Or you know what? This can actually be wet until tomorrow. Then, I'll embrace the day. I'll open up the emails and look at the calendars, which transpired overnight, because at least I remember what I had in my mind as my key targets, tasks, and key results that I was planning to do today.
Let's see now whether that's still appropriate and what I need to deprioritize in order to still meet those plans.
I really think about what happens when you do that reflection at the end of the day or the night and think about what's happening for tomorrow. I really believe that somehow subconsciously you process that during your sleep.
So you wake up feeling quite comfortable with the plan for the day, like there's no surprises. And when I think about when I haven't had that as part of my practice, you look at your agenda and your emails and you're like, Oh, gosh, that's, there's a ton going on here . Yep. I'm not quite sure how I'm gonna get the day done, whereas I think, as I was chatting before, like I'm hyper aware of the productivity I need to achieve today in order to do a lot of meetings tomorrow in order to have a call late tonight in order to travel, in order to come back for a lunch on Friday.
Like all of these things, it's not really stressful. Like I have that awareness and that reflection and setting yourself up with end of day reflections or start of day reflections are a great way to get yourself on track. I think what's beautiful about the thing that we've been talking about, Mark, with setting goals is you can also help the people around you.
And it's not only sharing your goals with them and they share theirs with you. It's what, it's, what happens after that. It's where we can get down to the serious business of feedback or what Kim Scott, the author calls radical candor. So let's jump in to how we can build trust and create fundamental change.
So what I encourage folks to do it really. Be more than just professional, not be unprofessional, but really create the kind of environments in your workplaces where You can bring real human relationships, You can develop real human relationships at work. However, love is not all you need.
You also need the other dimension of radical candor, that is what I think of as the challenge, direct dimension, or the willingness to piss people off. And this is hard because from the moment we learn how to speak, starting when we're 18 months old, not 18 years old, our parents come along and they say to us some version of, If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
And I would argue that now that you are working, it's your job to say it. So this is hard. Radical candra is hard. It's hard because of this professional training since we got our first job when we were 18 years old. And it's hard because of this. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
That's been pounded into our head since we learned to speak at 18 months old or however old we were. One of the things that I've done to try to make it a little bit easier is to give a name to what happens when we fail in one dimension or another, which we all do multiple times a day. So sometimes we remember to challenge ourselves directly, but we forget to show that we care personally.
And this I call obnoxious aggression and an early draft of radical candor. I call this the asshole quadrant cuz it seemed, I don't know, more radically candid, but I stopped doing that for a very important reason as soon as I did that people would use this framework to start writing names and boxes and I beg of you don't use this framework that way.
Think about radical candor like a compass that is gonna help guide specific conversations that you're having with specific people to a better place. Now, very often when we realize we've acted like a jerk and we've landed in the obnoxious aggression quadrant. Rather than moving up on the care personal dimension, it is our instinct to go the wrong way on challenges directly.
And the problem there is that then you wind up in the very worst place of all manipulative insincerity, and this is where passive aggressive behavior, political behavior, backstabbing behavior creeps in the kind of stuff that makes work intolerable. And it's kinda fun to tell stories about obnoxious aggression and manipulative insincerity.
But the fact of the matter is cuz that's where the drama is. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority of us make the vast majority of our mistakes. In this last quadrant where we do remember to show that we care personally, it turns out most people are actually pretty nice. But we're so concerned about not hurting someone's feelings that we fail to tell them something they'd be better off knowing.
And this is what I call ruinous.
Ruinous empathy. Mike. I think where we are hearing now from Kim Scott with her book Radical Candor is I suppose the next extension when it comes to goals. And that's how we can, if we're on the other side of the coin, improve and help others meet their goals. And I think the key takeaway that I've really got from Kim Scott, as well as her four quadrants around radical candor, is the fact that you don't want to avoid conflict.
You don't want to avoid giving perhaps negative or constructive feedback criticism. Because at the end of the day, as we learn within our show on Moonshot with Kim Scott, Radical candor episode 204 was that one of the most dangerous things we can do is just keep it to ourselves. We can , as you have revealed on today's show, Mike, some of the goals and the techniques that you utilize. If I've, as I have heard, what you've been doing, but I don't challenge you, if I see you going astray, then I'm not helping you.
I'm not there to provide guidance or assistance and therefore it's possible. But remember this, Mark, what are the chances if you don't share your goals with people, what are the chances that any human has the capacity to self-manage against those exactly right. Like this? Just no way that we are gonna face the honest and brutal truth ourselves on our own in an ivory tower.
In isolation. We need our friends, family, peers, colleagues, and associates. To give us some sort of feedback. So that's why the sharing of the goal is so important because there's no way to provide radical candor if you don't know what they're aiming for.
It reminds me of ATO Grande's checklist manifesto.
When he said the Mind, the Brain is a very bad computer.
Yes. And Dave Allen. He had the same thing and we just can't remember stuff
Exactly. Getting things done. And this idea of being able to share it either verbally or commit to it online, whatever it might be, share it within the business.
You're gonna struggle to do it entirely yourself. You need that little bit of guidance or assistance to help you stay on track. I think that's a great build on this idea of goal setting that again, helps us appreciate, it can be accomplishable if you've got the right support network. As we were hearing the expert program management clip,
Think about it like this.
What I think we're all, we all know that if we have some, like some colleagues that we really like, we often like sharing ideas with 'em to get their feedback, right? , absolutely fair. Yeah. Yep. So if you go to the next level, it's a little bit more sensitive. Share your goals with them and get their feedback on those.
An idea is slightly more disconnected from yourself, although we often take feedback to our ideas quite personally. But why not surround yourself with people? A couple, one or two, who you really can be open with and really practice a growth mindset and ask for their critique, ask for their feedback, knowing that they are not passing judgment on you, but merely giving you a status report on where you are against your goals.
That's it. It's no personal attack. If you can ascend to that level, which I believe is a very high form of growth mindset, then you are like many of the greatest artists, athletes, and business people who love critics. They love it. How many great athletes use the roar of an opposing fan base in the stadium to motivate them to do better?
Why can't you use objective feedback that you are? Falling short of your goals as a way to catapult yourself further, to dig deeper into the world of motivation and determination. Why not? Don't let it be a judgment, because you know what happens, Mike, if we see something as a judgment, then there ain't no trust.
There's no change. You resent it, right? You push back and you're like, Maybe you even get defensive because it's an attack on you, You find people, maybe you run away from it. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. We're not quite done. Fine, Mark. We're not really quite done with this idea of goals and objectives.
I think we've already shown that it can be something great for you, your colleagues, something to share together. But I think something we've touched on a little bit, Mark, is that goals and OKRs are things that can be set at work. But they can, That's set in other settings, can't they?
That's right. Mike, we're gonna hear one more time if we haven't made the case for our members yet.
We're gonna hear one more clip that's really gonna talk about the benefits of utilizing OKRs and girls to plan where you're gonna go ahead from today. So let's hear one last time on show 80 and 19 as 16. Sorry, my goals, , you're
look, you're so in the future, Mark, that you're 16, 17, 18. I need to bring you back to today, or at least perhaps for the next 90 days.
What do you think? Let's hear from Michael D. Watkins. Close out the show with the next 90. There have been
a number of executives who have been going through the workshop. They're not in a transition. One of the really unexpected benefits we've found is they're coming up to me saying, Oh my gosh, this is my next 90 days.
So what I found is whether it's the first 90 days or their next 90 days, the same concepts and principles apply. Could you
speak more to that? So the workshop is really about understanding where you are and planning for going. That's most valuable often when you are in transition, but it can be valuable anytime, right?
The discipline of taking stock of where you are, right? Understanding the key features of the challenges you're facing, thinking about what you need to learn because we need to learn these days at every point in time and putting together a plan for the next 90 days. That can be an incredibly productive thing to do.
I've had leaders go through the first 90 days program and adopt it as a methodology for every 90 days. They go forward and do this sort of work as the speed of change is accelerated. You can argue that senior leaders are basically in transition in some form or another, almost always, right? And if that's the case, then the discipline of understanding, diagnosing, learning, planning, connecting, propelling things forward, that can be a very useful discipline wherever you are.
In terms of timing in your role?
We are always planning the next 90 days and working on them. I personally love thinking using the q1, q2, q3, Q4 structure from work at home. I think about my life very much in terms of these blocks and I have goals for those blocks and I even write calendars and I match my activities to my goals.
Like I see no difference there. And the funny thing is that when I send the monthly. Budget of what our family has spent. When I send it to my wife, it is like the monthly p and l report of a business. I'm looking, here's what came in, here's what goes out, here's what's going on. And I thrive with that clarity.
And I don't have a ton of stress around finance money because we have a monthly p and l structure and reporting, and we pay for software to do this. And that's great because the stress that takes off is huge. So it's, I love this idea of you can use goal setting at home and work and even use this idea of time, chunks, whatever's appropriate for you to be your best, both professionally and personally.
What do you think?
Yeah I think this clarity that it can bring when you put in the, let's call them frameworks, is so empowering. It's re relieving the stress or the anxiety that you have by not really feeling like you are on the right topic. It's like picking up a book at a random page and wondering what the story is.
I think you can remove that confusion that might come with dealing with the day to day hustle and bustle, immediately, immediate responses require the end of the world if you don't do this right away. Instead, when you have that structure in place, whether it's a monthly family budget, whether it's goals that you set yourself or that you're sharing with others.
It's the clarity that I think is so valuable here, the clarity to know what you are working on, what those around you are working on, what the business is working on. And then in turn, it almost is like a cycle. If I have access to what everybody around me is working on, I know that we are therefore contributing to the business.
Now if I look at the business, I can say, Okay, great. This is where the business is going. Am I supporting that? And gradually this continual cycle of learning and improvement takes place and what we can hear from Michael D. Watkins in that final clip, I think is cool to action. It's embracing the fact.
You want to put into place, whether it's over the next 90 days, i e the next quarter or the next, nine years, 90 years plan to grow, plan to experiment with topics or items. Maybe it's taking ownership of your finances, ownership of what you are gonna work on this quarter and how you're gonna react or share it with your colleagues and those around you.
I think this is the big call out, isn't it, just to get started today. Give it a go, see what works. And I think we've made the case that it will therefore create a more structured and enjoyable process because you are not feeling that anxiety of. I'm not really sure whether I'm working in the right direction.
Am I supporting those around me correctly? I don't really know whether I'm being helpful or not. And that insecurity, I think, for me at least, has led to, poor work in the past and something that I'm always looking to try and
improve. Just think about it. If you don't set yourself goals, invariably you will cut some corners, take a little bit easy, or just fall into a quick sand of okayness, right?
And if you think about everyone listening to this show, they are totally signing up to be the best version of yourselves. And you have to set goals to make that happen. Nobody wins a gold medal saying, Eh, I'll just see what happens. Yeah, no, nobody does. So hopefully we have made that relationship between, realizing your potential.
Being the best version of yourself, Setting the goals, giving yourself the simplicity and clarity of I will, and being absolutely measurable in those things. And listen, sometimes you're gonna fall short. There's always gonna be stretch goals, but there is this enormous clarity. If you have said, I'm gonna run three times this week, and you've run twice and it's day seven of the week, you know what you're doing, don't you, Mark
That's right. You're running. Go out for a run, run .
Even. It doesn't matter what, how much you drink the night before, if you wanna be the best version of yourself. You go back to your goals and say, I've gotta get this done. I set a goal. Mark. So much covered in this master series on goals we've gone the gamut here on goal setting, feedback, personal and professional lives.
What is sticking out to you other than the fact that Laura Wilkinson is one amazing Olympic gold
medalist? I've gotta, I've gotta be honest, Mike, I think the story from Laura was gonna be the call out that has really resonated with me. The idea of somebody who's in an area that's totally removed from, let's call it the day-to-day business, sitting in front of a computer knowledge work and so on, and applying the same practical tips that we have learned from John do, from Christina Woodkey, from Michael D.
Watkins, and Kim Scott. Is this idea of putting it into practice, holding yourself accountable, visualizing it and planning and that idea of planning, I think is really brought to life quite well by Laura Wilkinson. And, she went out and won a, an Olympic gold just pretty casually
job done job done.
Exactly. Job. What about you, Mike? What's the, your big takeaway, your big moment of inspiration from today's show?
I gotta say for me, this is a celebration of the process and I love the fact that setting goals is something that is so widely applicable. John is a great vc, great author, and he is Oh, let's make sure we have dinner together as a.
That was his okr. I love it. I'm signed up, so I wanna say thank you to you, Mark, and thank you to our members and our subscribers for tuning in for this Epic Master Series, episode 16 on goals. And it started with John Deere pointing out how some of the greats use OKRs to ask big questions of themselves.
And we saw Laura Wilkinson getting the job done, winning the Olympic Gold medal in 2000. She told me. Setting goals was crucial to her achievements. Christina Wooki talked about empowerment. We learned that it's all about keeping a balance here. Don't get too carried away with the setting of the goals. Don't forget, you gotta get that job done.
You gotta do the work. Kim Scott gave us the chance for radical candor, to build trust and to create fundamental change with her full project. And Michael Watkins, Mr. 90 Days himself said, It's always, there's always another 90 days. Whether you are personal or professional goal setting, there's always another 90 days to become the best version of yourself.
And we love doing that here at the Moonshot Master Series. We love challenging ourselves. We love learning out loud together. Do that and good things will happen. All right, That's a wrap.