March Three: Momentum
If you examine the graveyard of great ideas or intentions, the leading cause of death is almost certain to be the failure to execute. Or as John Doerr succinctly puts it in Measure What Matters, “Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.” Setting goals and making plans (or charting a destination, as we did in March Two) is a common practice for most organizations, but why is there such a breakdown when it comes to bringing those goals and plans to fruition?
Our GAS acronym tool takes your goals and helps you: 1) establish key metrics to help everyone understand what defines success (the gains), 2) consider variables that could affect your outcomes (the assumptions), and 3) create a framework for purposeful and intentional action (the solutions). And since we’re in the “Momentum” march, what better way to spark some serious forward motion than to gas up your goals?
Using our proprietary and practical tools, you’ll answer these questions:
What key gains will define success?
What assumptions are we making?
What solutions will help us reach our goal?
As with all of our marches, we’ll help you think differently by applying concepts and principles from the world of business. In March Three, we’ll pull ideas from MyFitnessPal, Intel, Google and Remind among others.
“To achieve a goal you’ve never achieved before, you must do things you’ve never done before. Look around you. Who else has achieved this goal or something like it? What did they do differently? Analyze carefully any barriers you foresee and decide together how to overcome them. Use your imagination. What haven’t you thought of that might make all the difference?”
— Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey,
The Four Disciplines of Execution