Are your business goals outcome and process driven?

Research strongly suggests that performance and results improve when a difficult SMART Stretch goal is set.

So, what is a stretch goal and how can you apply it effectively in your business?

A stretch goal is an objective that cannot be achieved by incremental or small improvements, but requires extending yourself to the limit for the goal to be achieved.

The goal must be a challenge that is significantly beyond your team’s or your business’s current level of performance.

The term stretch goals was first invented by Jack Welch, former CEO of GE to denote those objectives that seemed unachievable with the present resources.

Jack believed that when it came to Stretch goals it paid to have 2 types of goal:

1) Stretch Outcome goals – GE had a SMART stretch outcome goal – to be No.1 or No.2 in every sector they worked in.

2) Stretch Process goals – GE had SMART stretch process goals – every company, division and manager at GE had KPIs to achieve every week and month.

Have you set you and your team stretch goals? Does this goal really stretch your team?

Are your goals outcome and process driven and how are they measured?

Set your business an impossible challenge… stretch yourself to achieve an ambitious goal that as a business seems unobtainable, and you will see your stretch goal stretch your thinking, planning and actions.