TOP Goal Setting

Purpose

Establish the few consequential changes the organization must make to move forward. This event identifies both where the system loses momentum and where it must grow, shift, or expand capabilities to achieve future outcomes. A TOP Goal is not a wish or an optimization — it is a structural commitment that alters how the organization behaves, creates advantage, and enables the next level of performance.

The output is a small set of goals that reduce friction, unlock strategic motion, and steer the organization toward a more capable, more coherent future.

Execution

Triggers:	When friction rises, goals expire or a new opportunity arises
Time:	45-60 minutes
Who:	People who deal with the consequences, carry accountability, or must live with the trade-offs. In practice: the emerging coalition.
Outcome:	A small, aligned set of consequential TOP Goals that reduce friction, expand capability, and strengthen strategic position — with clear commitment from participants.

Event Agenda

This agenda exposes reality from two angles: where motion breaks down today, and where the organization must evolve to achieve tomorrow's outcomes. Both operational friction and strategic shaping are required to form a coherent set of TOP Goals. The session brings problems, constraints, opportunities, and ambitions into one frame so that the necessary system changes become undeniable.

Activity	Purpose
What causes friction?	Surface the actual problems people feel. No narratives or assumptions: the points where work stops moving.
What consumes your resources?	Expose the activities that drain time, energy, and capacity. The ones nobody questions anymore.
How do activities create problems?	Draw the map: how today's work patterns actively generate tomorrow's friction.
How to reduce friction?	Define what must happen so that the system moves forward. Goals emerge from reducing the forces that create drag.
Add shaping & strategic goals	Capture the goals that enable growth, expansion, or new capabilities. These goals define how the system must evolve to stay competitive, serve customers better, or open new possibilities. Not repairs — deliberate moves that change what becomes possible next.
Validate against friction & strategic necessity	Filter every proposed goal against both friction and future direction. Keep goals that meaningfully reduce system drag or enable strategic outcomes. Remove goals that do not shift the system or strengthen the organization's future position.
Commitment	Secure explicit commitment to the final constellation of goals. No hedging, no silent vetoes.

Operating Manual

The facilitator's job is simple: keep the conversation anchored in reality. Prevent solution-jumping. Expose the causal chains that hold the current system in place. Maintain momentum. No more, no less.

Quick Checklist

Inputs: understanding of current problems, resource consumption patterns, strategic opportunities, and any existing goals or constraints
Outputs: a small, coherent set of consequential TOP Goals that reduce friction, expand capability, or strengthen strategic position, with clear buy-in from participants
When to run: when current goals are achieved or invalidated, when major new problems or resource constraints appear, when strategic opportunities emerge, or at agreed cadence (e.g. quarterly)

Execution Tips

What causes friction?

Start with the points where work stops moving. Not stories. Not interpretations. Actual obstacles, delays, contradictions, and pains people feel in their day-to-day work.

Use a shared surface so everyone sees the same reality.
Ask: “Where does progress break? What outcomes do you want to avoid?”
Collect observable problems — not diagnoses, not opinions.
Group related items to reveal the clusters of friction.

Keep this free of solutions. You're mapping what the system produces today.

What consumes your resources?

Shift the lens from problems to activities. Identify the work patterns that drain time, attention, energy, and capacity — especially the ones people stopped questioning years ago.

Ask: “What activities absorb disproportionate resources?”
Focus on actions and processes, not people or departments.
Include hidden work: coordination overhead, rework, escalations.
Tag these as resource-consuming activities.

The aim is to reveal the behaviors the system normalizes — not justify them.

How do activities create problems?

Connect the dots. Show how the resource-consuming activities directly or indirectly generate the friction identified earlier. This is where the system's logic becomes visible.

For each activity, ask: “How does this create or amplify the friction we listed?”
Draw causal links: explicit and implicit.
Highlight activities with the strongest impact.
Ask: “If this activity happened less, would this friction decrease?”

This step exposes the engine behind the problems: the organization's actual operating logic.

How to reduce friction?

Define what must change so friction decreases. Goals emerge from reducing the forces that generate drag, not from brainstorming improvements.

Ask: “What needs to happen less for friction to drop?”
Focus on reducing load, not fixing symptoms.
Frame goals as changes in behavior or activity — not tools or solutions.
Each potential goal should clearly link to a friction point.

You're shaping leverage points: not writing tasks or requirements.

Add shaping & strategic goals

Invite participants to define the goals that matter beyond friction. These are the system-shaping commitments: capabilities the organization must build, positions it must take, risks it must reduce, or opportunities it must enable. These goals define the direction of travel, not just the removal of drag.

Ask: "What must become true for us to compete, grow, or unlock the next level of performance?"
Capture capabilities, enabling conditions, strategic bets, and future-oriented moves.
Keep goals outcome-centered and solution-neutral.

These are not improvements — they are commitments that shape the organization's future trajectory.

Validate against friction & strategic necessity

Filter the entire goal list against the two forces that matter:

Does it reduce a meaningful source of friction?
Does it expand capability or position us for the future?

Keep only goals that do one of these. Prioritize those that do both.

A goal that neither reduces friction nor strengthens strategic position is noise.

Commitment

Secure explicit commitment to the final constellation of goals. Not agreement — commitment. No hedging. No silent vetoes.

Show the final set: goals that reduce friction and goals that expand capability or strategic position.
Ask each participant: "Can you commit to these goals without reservation?"
Address anything that blocks full commitment.
Confirm shared understanding of what success looks like.

If someone cannot commit, you don't have goals: you have intentions. Resolve it now.

Goal Capture Format

Use this format to capture the final goals as NEAR goals. Keep the text solution-neutral (no tools, methods, or org charts inside the goal wording). A valid goal must spell out Needs, Expectations, Assumptions, and Reasons for the people who feel the consequences, carry accountability, and live with the trade-offs.

    Goal:
We want to meet the need:
    [Who needs what, specifically?]
    
We expect that:    
    [What should happen when pursuing this?]
    [What external factors do we depend on?]
    
We assume:    
    [Where belief and practice might diverge?]
    [What can we not check before we start?]
    
We pursue this because:    
    [Reasons, urgency, consequences, strategic relevance?]
    [What breaks or becomes impossible if we don't do it?]
    
We are on track when:
    [Success signals — what tells us we are on track?]
    
We need to talk if:    
    [Exception signals — what tells us we need to course correct?]
    
Goal in one sentence:    
    [A concise summary of the intended change + the outcome it should produce]

Regardless of whether a goal is friction-reducing or opportunity-creating, it must shift the system in a consequential way. A TOP Goal always alters behavior, capability, or structural conditions — never just output or throughput.

Tip: Goals should clearly connect to capabilities, friction, and shaping needs.

Next Step

With the TOP Goals agreed and buy-in secured, proceed to the Coalition Formation Event to assemble the coalition that will carry these goals, then continue to the Mission Launch Event to define cadence, signals, and escalation paths.