A man sits with his doctor, who’s flipping through his charts. “Your blood pressure is really high,” says the doctor. “If you don’t lower it, you’ll be at risk for a bunch of problems.” The doctor makes a recommendation: “You should lower your blood pressure to 130 over 90. Check in with me in 30 days.”
在患者离开之前，医生解释了血压的收缩期，舒张压和其他方面。他解释了心脏的机制以及血压重要的原因。患者对血压的工作原理有着深刻的了解，并知道他的目标压力是什么。
当他在路边吸烟时，它落在他身上：他不知道下一步该怎么做。
Setting Targets Doesn’t Get You Closer To Them
Like managers and their teams, doctors set targets for their patients. It’s important to know what constitutes a healthy blood pressure, cholesterol level, and body weight. But doctors don’t just set targets and send you on your way. Instead, they focus on the contributing factors that need to be addressed in order to make those targets achievable. How it all works isn’t really useful information for the patient.
我们的吸烟者看第二位医生。第二位医生说：“将其降低到90岁以上的130。”但是她继续说：“你抽烟吗？告诉我你的饮食。你什么时候睡觉？您的压力水平是多少？你有运动吗？”
“现在我们到了某个地方，”病人认为。
“You need to quit smoking,” she says, “and you need to start jogging, even if it’s just a mile or two every other day. Can you commit to those two changes?”
“是的，”病人说。“无论如何我一直在努力辞职。”
“伟大的。明天让您吸烟的最后一天和跑步的第一天。回来30天后见我，我们将再次查看您的生命。我们将看看您是否取得了进步。”
The first doctor set a target but didn’t help his patient understand the contributing factors. He didn’t make a plan for the behavioral changes that would make progress possible. And he spent too much energy explaining the details of the metric itself; understanding systolic pressure won’t help you quit smoking. Knowing your benchmark doesn’t usually help you reach it.
第二位医生设定了一个目标，但花了很少的时间来辩论或解释。她迅速采取了实现结果的策略。更重要的是，她没有know直接对这个特定患者有什么作用：饮食？锻炼？抽烟？还是只是遗传学？但是她有经验丰富的直觉，因此她对运动进行了一些更改，并同意在设定的时间范围内重新评估。
这就是好的老板如何为团队设定目标：明确的目标，清晰的指标评估对他们的进步，并且在所有面向行动的策略中最重要的是到达那里。这是最有效的经理对将目标绑定到行动的理解。
实现目标的三个基本原理
1.实际上重要的指标。Doctors know which metrics are right in the areas of medicine they specialize in, but they also know how to improve those metrics. What constitutes success—the target value—is usually clear enough: it’s established through experience, in consultation with other experts, and by talking with the patient. Setting that target is generally the responsibility of the doctor. They set a clear goal with the patient, and invest their remaining time into identifying strategies for achieving the goal.
Likewise, managers need to identify the metrics that matter for their teams, and they need to set audacious but achievable targets. They need to work with sources inside and outside the company to identify the right targets, share those with the team, and then focus on strategies for hitting them. Don’t debate targets with your team; set them, and debate strategies.
2. A division of responsibility.医生知道他们不能代表您做任何事情。他们无法直接干预以改变您的行为。相反，他们告知，指导和鼓励患者采用他们确定的策略。他们永远不会想代表您吃饭，为您服用毒品，或者在做不到的时候跳上跑步机。唯一重要的行动是患者自己接受的那些行为。当患者滑倒时，他们会调整进场，然后重试。
Managers also need to resist the temptation to directly participate in the work they’ve tasked their teams with doing. Teams need to be self-directed and work consistently according to the strategy their managers have mapped out with them. Failures, while a cause for concern, aren’t always a cause for intervention. Instead, they’re data for the manager to consider changing up the approach.
3.一致的习惯胜过单一成功的行动。医生知道，一致的习惯，而不是曾经的干预措施，通常是改善整体健康状况的最佳方法。他们知道，最好的精力是花费的，可以帮助患者坚持一系列简单的改进，而不是从一开始就设计出完美的解决方案 - 可以完成一次，仅此而已。随着时间的流逝，始终如一的增量变化导致您可以维持的真正进步。
经理通常很想召集会议，讨论解决方案，并专注于对计划的周期调整。他们经常忽略他们试图解决的问题的根源的破碎或失败的过程。管理人员不应在计划中进行干预，而应在其团队内建立轻巧的过程和文化期望。那是对方法人们工作 - 不是结果在他们的工作中 - 当始终如一地遵循时，会导致长期变化。
Ultimately, setting goals and targets isn’t something managers can do in a vacuum. It’s the concern of peer teams, superiors, and team members together. Why? Because the right goals are actually pretty hard to reach: it takes consulting with all manner of “experts”–not just leaders, but those with relevant knowledge or experience who may sit above, beside, or below any individual decision maker.
另外，您和您的团队为了绘制成功策略所需的知识中的某些份额可能还存在于您自己的公司之外，并在其他人，资源和行业基准下休息 - 您需要寻找并借鉴的所有东西在您设置课程之前。但是，一旦完成，最好的老板就确定了目标，与他们的团队合作制定策略，然后摆脱困境。