Yesterday, a client asked where best to start to really make the most of Asana. The answer was clear: Goals.
While I have known this from helping many clients, large and small, to implement goals organization-wide in Asana (often using the OKRs framework), now I can cite a new, data-backed resource: Asana’s just-published 2023 Anatomy of Work Global Index provides compelling findings and clear calls to action presented in an engaging, information-rich report deck.
Goals are Everything
Goals in Asana direct focus at the organization, team, and individual levels and increase cross-functional (XFN) collaboration, another key theme in this year’s Anatomy of Work.
Clear goals contribute to business success by boosting collaboration, innovation, and employee engagement. They offer a defined starting point and pave the way to most effectively gain all the benefits that Asana has to offer.
Why do I say goals are everything? When you consider the following 360-degree view of your organization leveraging Asana effectively, how could you conclude otherwise?
- Top-down Goals directly tie into work—in the form of portfolios, projects, and milestones—to foster effective collaboration with purpose and clarity all year long.
- Bottom-up Goals are implemented by deep Asana usage and with the completion of work as milestones and tasks. In an upward cascade, you track and monitor your goals’ measures via metrics, automatically or manually, and through status reporting on projects, portfolios, individual goals, and key results at your preferred cadence.
Goals, Enterprises, and Cross-Functional Collaboration
Clear goals support strong XFN collaboration:
- 89% of workers at collaborative organizations (based on five dimensions focused on collaboration and communication) say they have clear goals for their role. That’s nearly 3x compared to those in less collaborative organizations.
- Similar findings (nearly 90% vs. nearly 30%) apply to workers saying 1) that their company has clear organizational objectives, and 2) that their own objectives are connected to their company’s goals.
Organization-wide goals require XFN collaboration across departments and teams at any business or nonprofit. But for enterprises, in particular, XFN collaboration is crucial:
- Enterprise respondents cited alignment across teams as their biggest business challenge: 41% of workers at enterprise-sized companies say creating alignment across teams is a top-three challenge. That’s compared to just 33% of all knowledge workers.
Ripple Effects of Clear Goals
Many more wide-reaching positive outcomes redound with the setting of clear goals:
- Knowing your “why” increases engagement and reduces burnout
- Workers at companies with clear objectives said they understood how their work supported their teammates, 111% higher than those without objectives.
- 87% of workers with clear goals could see themselves working at their current company for the next year; that’s 85% more than workers who said their company had no clear goals.
- Better business preparedness
- 87% of workers with individual goals tied to company-wide goals say their company is well-prepared to meet customers’ expectations—more than double those without (37%).
- 73% of workers with clear goals say their company is ready to achieve a competitive advantage; just 23% of workers with no clear goals can say the same.
- Increased information sharing
- At companies where individual objectives were linked to company goals, employees were also far more likely to 1) share information (83% vs. 24%), 2) ensure information was getting to the right people (83% vs. 27%), and 3) keep key players informed (81% vs. 26%).
- Easier collaboration with stakeholders
- 71% of people at companies with clear goals said it was easy to work with stakeholders in other functions, compared to just 26% of workers with no clear goals.
Simplifying Goal-Setting
Achieving these benefits, while not a trivial effort, is achievable and can be simplified:
- Don’t over-extend; set only the “what” of the goal, but do so as specifically and clearly as possible. (See also my Forum Leader Tip: Instead of SMART Criteria for Goals and Objectives, Consider SMARTIE adding “Inclusive” and “Equitable”)
- Let empowered, collaborative XFN teams take it from there to determine the “how,” leveraging their creativity for the most innovative and effective solutions.
@Rebecca_Hinds, Ph.D. and Head of Asana’s Work Innovation Lab, synthesizes, offers a clear call to action, and points to the future:
Collaborative Intelligence [the ability of employees, teams, and organizations to understand how collaboration is happening and how it should happen] can—and ought to be—an essential input into a company’s goal-setting approach. In particular, it can enable leaders to see where collaboration breakdowns exist and which teams are not collaborating effectively or in high-value ways.
Once these breakdowns and their consequences become visible, organizations can be proactive about setting goals to target the true source of the issue.
As I draw on these guidelines to support my Asana clients, I will also look forward to future Anatomy of Work findings and new ways the Work Innovation Lab will help improve our Collaborative Intelligence.
Larry Berger
Asana Consultant at Trilogi Solutions
Asana Services Partner, Technology Partner, Forum Leader, Event Leader