Want a High Performing Team, Try the OGSM Model. The OGSM model (Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Measures) can help teams get on the same page and moving in the right direction.

For the past 25 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of groups across dozens of big companies and startups. One thing’s consistent: everyone works in teams, and the ultimate success of any organization relies on the overall effectiveness of the teams within it.

That’s why universities like Harvard and companies like Google have spent years studying different types of teams to identify the common success factors. As a result, there are several widely accepted “principles” for leading effective teams like providing clear roles and responsibilities, building trust, and ensuring dependability through accountability.

But in my experience, things get muddy when it comes to just how you do all this. There’s no one right tool, right model, or right process that’s recognized as the silver bullet. So, what do you do if you’re leading a team and want to ensure it’s as effective as possible?

When I work with executives, I always recommend helping their teams get clear on what they want to achieve, why, how, and how they’ll know they’ve accomplished it. Said another way, you need to define your overall objective, determine what goals are needed to realize it, understand the strategies needed to achieve each goal, and then define quantifiable success metrics to keep everyone focused.

One model for doing exactly that is the OGSM framework. OGSM is an acronym that stands for Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures.

Here’s a template avaliable to download and modify to build out your own OGSM approach. The template includes the following sections, organized by what needs to be defined by your team, including the order in which they should be completed:

Objectives

Clearly define the team’s overall objective, which should be linked to the team’s ultimate purpose. For example: Create an engaging customer experience that drives repeat sales.

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