Direction
Define the world you want to exist before you define your organization's mission or start shipping small deliveries: without that vision, teams will move in different directions and politics will decay all ability for innovation.
Direction
Learn about growth and what an institution should refuse in order to keep it.
Initiatives
Run no more than three initiatives at once, only one of them an opportunity, and put your best people on that opportunity and on your biggest bottlenecks.
Measures
Most organizations use measures to hide from the exact accountability it is supposed to create. They optimize proxy-indicators to create the illusion of momentum and velocity, while the actual foundation rots.
Objectives
An Objective is a goal with a clearly defined end state. It has a measurable outcome and/or change in output. Without an objective, teams measure motion instead of progress.
Meaningful direction
Remind everyone of the purpose and long-term goals, even when the day is full of small tasks.
Organizations measure motion to avoid accountability for progress
There is a dangerous comfort in measuring motion instead of progress. When organizations lose the discipline to judge work by actual systemic effectiveness and performance, metrics become the ultimate refuge from accountability.