Page 84 - Hard Goals

Animated 75

completed the online forms with a number, as the software
required. But then everybody, including the CEO, scanned their
hand-drawn goal pictures, and with the OK from corporate,
they attached those scanned picture fi les to their goals in the
software system. And then, of course, they taped those pictures
to their offi ce or cubicle walls and did everything we’ve been
talking about in this chapter. By the way, they’ll be moving
to using “animated” goals for a few more regions this year.
Why? This is the only division worldwide where over 90 percent
of managers hit their stretch goals. (All the other divisions are
below 30 percent.)
Of course, everything I just said about business goals applies
to other goals like personal health, savings, or retirement goals.
Any goal, be it personal or professional, that stays strictly in the
abstract will never deliver the same kind of outcome and process
stimulation as will goals that are animated.
“Two years ago I never dreamed I’d be setting weekly speed
and distance goals for my swimming,” says Ivy Lynn, a retired
elementary school teacher in her early 50s. “Back then I was
recovering from a hip replacement operation and pretty con-
sumed with wondering if I would ever walk normally again.”
Swimming, a sport Ivy had never even considered previously,
was part of her rehabilitation process. “I fell in love with being
in the water,” Ivy says, brushing her blond curls out of the way
to reveal eyes that burn bright with excitement. “Something
suddenly happened where I stopped seeing myself as an invalid
and started picturing myself, yes, 51-year-old me, swimming
laps. I could barely make it up my front steps at the time, but I
saw myself quite clearly as a swimmer.”
“Suddenly I was telling people, ‘I’m going to be a competi-
tive swimmer,’ and everyone was looking at me hobbling around