It’s not rocket science—setting a common aim is a basic tool every leader can use.
If you’re a business owner, sales manager or team leader, you know that you can manage processes and projects, but not people. The good news is that one of the most effective ways to lead people is to ensure that they share a common aim.
Some of the most significant achievements in history have been accomplished through setting and challenging people to act on a common aim. In 1961, for example, then-President John Kennedy rallied NASA, the National Space and Aeronautics Administration, around a 12-word aim: land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. Compared to the technology of the 2010s, this extraordinary feat was accomplished on July 20, 1969, with what looks like vacuum tubes and duct tape.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to give your team a compelling sense of purpose. You just need to set a common aim. Here are the essential characteristics of powerful common aims.
A common aim can be expressed in a few words // A powerful aim is concise and easy to remember, like NASA’s. Microsoft’s early vision was, “a computer on every desk and in every home.” Nordstrom’s common aim is to “give the customer the most compelling shopping experience possible.” The Kansas City Royals shared the aim, “find a way to win,” and won the 2015 World Series.
A common aim is not a goal // The Royal’s aim, “find a way to win,” provided a framework for individual and team performance measures, such as a batting average, stolen bases or strikeouts. Before you establish a sales quota or other performance metric, set and refine a common aim to provide your team with a context for their goals.
A common aim needs to be set, reset and set again // In 2015, Time magazine reported that the average adult’s attention span is about 8 seconds. You and your team can be easily distracted on a daily basis and quickly revert to setting your own personal aims. Once a common aim is established, take the lead in repeatedly keeping it top of mind so that it becomes “business as usual” for your team.
After the success of the Apollo 11 mission, NASA was unable to set an equally compelling aim for its subsequent missions, and none of them achieved the significance of the moon landing. Setting a common aim is powerful, but it’s not one and done. It’s a repeatable leadership activity that gives people a shared sense of purpose, and gives meaning to their goals and quotas.
