Why the secret to success is setting the right goals | John Doerr

**Modupe Akinola** (0:07)
Do you know that every night I write down my plan for the following day? My to-do list, which in some ways is my set of goals for the day. Do I do this monthly?
What about quarterly? Not so much either. How about you? How often do you set your goals?
Well, it turns out, if we don't take a longer view and set our long-term goals wisely, we might be missing out on our best chance to make an impact. Because goal setting is not as straightforward as it seems.
Welcome to the TED Business Podcast. I'm your host, Modupe Akinola, Associate Professor of Management at Columbia Business School and Director of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Company Center for Leadership in Ethics. In today's talk from TED 2018, John Doerr helps us think through the power of setting huge aspirational goals measured in the right way. John Doerr is the Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, the venture capital firm that has invested in several of the top technology companies in the world, including Google, Amazon, Compaq, Sun Microsystems, drugstore.com and Intuit. John explains that however promising your business plan, setting your goals in the right way can make or break it. As you listen, you're going to learn how to set goals that harness your passion into clear, actionable purpose. And this is from someone who knows just a little something about having the right objective.
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**John Doerr** (4:48)
We're at a critical moment. Our leaders, some of our great institutions are failing us.
Why? In some cases, it's because they're bad or unethical. But often, they've taken us to the wrong objectives. And this is unacceptable.
This has to stop.
How are we going to correct these wrongs? How are we going to choose the right course? It's not going to be easy.
For years, I've worked with talented teams, and they've chosen the right objectives and the wrong objectives. Many have succeeded, others of them have failed. And today, I'm going to share with you what really makes a difference. That's what's crucial. How and why they set meaningful and audacious goals. The right goals for the right reasons.
Let's go back to 1975 Yep, this is me. I got a lot to learn. I'm a computer engineer. I got long hair. But I'm working under Andy Grove, who's been called the greatest manager of his or any other era. Andy was a superb leader and also a teacher. And he said to me, John, it almost doesn't matter what you know. Execution is what matters the most. And so Andy invented a system called Objectives and Key Results. Kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? And it's all about excellent execution. So here's a classic video from the 1970s of Professor Andy Grove.