You know that thing your company said it would do, but isn’t happening? The one that started with the best of intentions. Everyone agreed it was really important. It seemed like a no-brainer at the time. But when you look around, nothing’s really changed.

I’ve got your answer. It’s. A. Game. Changer.

It’s the Wildly Important Goal

Let me introduce you to the Wildly Important Goal (WIG) from Franklin Covey. Here are the important things to note about a WIG:

It is a Team Sport.

Individuals can have lots of goals and might be working toward them with their supervisors or coaches. What makes the WIG different is that it pulls the team together and can only be met with the whole team’s cooperation. Ideally, the whole team works together to develop the WIG and its metrics.

It is a singular goal for an entire team.

There can only be one WIG at a time. Multiple goals distract from one another. The WIG is a goal that the whole team needs to work toward but until now has easily been forgotten about when the daily whirlwind of tasks became a distraction.

It’s SMART.

The WIG is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART). It is very important that the goal is something that can be easily measured and tracked.

It tracks “lead measures.”

The WIG must be tracked and easily monitored by all members of the team. Franklin Covey calls this tracker the “scorecard.” What should be tracked are both “lead” and “lag” measures. Lead measures are those things we can control (like hours spent or products produced) and Lag Measures are those things we cannot control but we are ultimately trying to achieve (like customer satisfaction or sales numbers).

Isn’t this just another fancy term for “Goal?”

I find when people first learn about a WIG, they say something like, “so it’s just a goal?” Sure. It’s a goal. But when it follows the specifics above, it’s much more than a goal. It’s a disruption from our typical daily rhythm. It focuses a team around a singular target and keeps them motivated to reach it together despite the many distractions that will inevitably pop up.

I have seen teams of every kind make incredible things happen when they have a singular goal that they all bought into and are set up to achieve — departmental teams, whole organization teams, and even teams that represent multiple organizations.

Final note: make all the “wig” jokes you like here. I actually found that my teams did better when we got sillier about talking about our “wig.” We even wore wigs to one of our meetings to celebrate it!

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Unleash Your Team's Potential with a Wildly Important Goal