Don't confuse the thing you're measuring or doing with the thing you're actually trying to accomplish.

This is an recap of my non-AI Video #3

A few years ago, I was talking with a husband and wife who were visiting Hawaiʻi. At the time, I was doing a lot of executive coaching and some life coaching in addition to my Agile work.

One of the things I talked about often was setting longer-term goals and then using those goals to make better decisions. I would usually ask people to think about five years, ten years, and eventually retirement.

What do you want your life to look like? What does a good working day look like? What does a good day in retirement look like? Where are you living? What are you spending your time doing?

The point was never to predict the future perfectly. The point was to create enough clarity that you could make decisions against it.

So I asked the husband what he wanted his life to look like in five years.

“I want to have 100 employees.”

My response was simple:

Why?

He looked at me like it was an odd question.

And I understood why. On the surface, having 100 employees sounds like a perfectly legitimate business goal. But I wanted to know what was behind the number.

Did he want to make more money? Build a company that could operate without him? Create jobs? Become more influential in his industry? Build something he could eventually sell?

Or did he simply believe that having 100 employees meant he had built a successful company?

Those are very different goals, and each one could lead him in a very different direction.

Then I asked his wife the same basic question.

What did she want her life to look like in five years?

I do not remember her exact words anymore, but her answer was something like this: she wanted a nice home in a safe area where they could raise their children.

That was much closer to what I was looking for.

Not because there is anything wrong with wanting 100 employees. The problem was that the number did not explain what he was actually trying to accomplish.

We Often Confuse the Number With the Goal

Businesses do this all the time.

We set goals like:

• $10 million in revenue
• 100 employees
• 20 locations
• 50 new customers
• three acquisitions
• a certain percentage of market share

Those can all be useful targets. They can help us measure progress, create accountability, and give people something specific to work toward.

But the number itself may not be the real goal.

The better question is:

What is this number supposed to accomplish?

If I want to build a company with 100 employees because I want the business to run without me, then freedom may be closer to the real goal.

If I want 100 employees because I want to dominate a particular market, then market position may be the real goal.

If I want 100 employees because I believe that scale will make the company valuable enough to sell, then building a transferable business may be the real goal.

The number matters, but it is not necessarily the destination.

I Saw the Same Thing Inside a Fortune 15 Company

Years later, I saw almost the exact same problem in a very different setting.

I was working with a Fortune 15 company, and a group responsible for new business development had been asked to develop a strategy.

Eventually, they presented it.

The strategy included things like opening a certain number of offices, acquiring a certain number of businesses, expanding into certain locations, and hitting specific growth numbers.

There was nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. In fact, they might have been exactly the right things to do.

But when the presentation was over, I remember thinking:

That is not really the strategy. It is a list of things you intend to do.

So I asked what I thought was the obvious question:

What are you actually trying to accomplish?

Why these offices? Why these acquisitions? Why these markets? What are these actions supposed to change?

Again, the reaction was not especially positive.

People usually do not enjoy being told that something they spent a lot of time creating may be missing an important piece. And, to be fair, I probably could have handled the conversation better.

That is a different lesson.

But the underlying problem was the same. They had jumped directly to actions and measures without clearly explaining what those actions were intended to accomplish.

A Plan Is Not a Strategy

The terminology can get messy because people use words like goal, objective, outcome, target, plan, and strategy interchangeably.

I am less concerned with perfect terminology than I am with getting the thinking right.

This is roughly how I look at it:

Desired Future

What do you ultimately want your life, business, or organization to look like?

For the wife in my first story, it was a safe and comfortable place to raise her family.

Goal

What meaningful condition are you trying to create?

That might be financial independence, more freedom, a business that operates without you, or becoming a meaningful competitor in a particular market.

Strategy

What choices are you going to make to achieve that goal?

For example:

We are going to enter underserved regional markets primarily through acquisitions rather than building every location from scratch.

Now I understand something about the path you have chosen and how you intend to get there.

Targets and Measures

How will you know whether you are making progress?

Revenue, number of employees, number of locations, profitability, market share, and customer retention can all be useful measures.

They support the goal. They are not necessarily the goal.

Initiatives and Actions

What are you actually going to do?

Open three offices. Acquire two companies. Hire 25 people. Launch a new service. Enter a new market.

Those are actions.

A collection of actions can form a plan.

But a list of actions alone is not a strategy.

Why This Distinction Matters

This can sound like semantics until you have to make a real decision.

Suppose your goal is simply:

“I want 100 employees.”

Now you have an opportunity to buy a small competitor.

Should you do it?

Maybe.

It gets you closer to 100 employees. But what if the acquisition makes the company more complicated, reduces profitability, and requires you to work another 20 hours every week?

If your real goal is more freedom, the acquisition may move you in exactly the wrong direction.

If your real goal is to sell the company within five years, perhaps it is a great move.

If your real goal is to remain small, profitable, and flexible, then adding people simply because the number is getting bigger makes no sense.

You cannot evaluate the decision until you know what you are really trying to accomplish.

That is why I keep coming back to one question:

Why?

Not in a vague motivational sense. In a very practical sense.

Why are you doing this? What do you expect it to change? What will be different if you succeed? And will that difference actually move you toward the life or business you said you wanted?

Start With the Future and Work Backward

Whether I am thinking about a business, a project, or my own life, I prefer to start with the desired future and work backward.

What do I want things to look like?

Then:

What needs to be true for that to happen?

What choices do I need to make?

What should I measure?

What should I actually do next?

That sequence matters.

When we reverse it, we often end up doing a lot of things without being sure why we are doing them.

We hire because growth is good. We open locations because expansion is good. We acquire companies because bigger is good. We chase revenue because more revenue is good.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

The better question is whether those things are moving you toward something you actually want.

There is nothing wrong with having 100 employees. There is nothing wrong with opening 20 offices. There is nothing wrong with making five acquisitions.

Just do not confuse the thing you are measuring or doing with the thing you are actually trying to accomplish.

A useful goal should help you decide what to do next.

If you need help figuring out what your goals actually are, this is something I really enjoy helping other people get clear on what they want and how to make decisions against it.