Summary
When you are establishing the goals and objectives of your company, it is important to define four key criteria for PEAK performance: Purpose, Execution, Accountability, and Key performance indicators. You and your organization will benefit from the clarity of knowing what needs to be done, who has the responsibility for doing it, and how performance will be measured.
.NEW YORK (TheStreet) — Getting your organization to work at maximum performance requires everyone to work together toward common goals and objectives. It also requires each person to be clear on their role and responsibilities, as well as being accountable for success (or failure).
The confusion often arises when each person’s role in the organization requires them to wear multiple “hats.” For example, you may be the owner of the company, but not be the most qualified person in the organization to make the decisions on projects or tasks that require specialized knowledge. Another example: an employee with decades of experience working in large corporations may not be the best fit for running a small enterprise.
Organizational Success
Ultimately, for organizations to succeed, they require selecting the right people. Those people need to be placed in the correct positions. Furthermore, they must delegate the appropriate roles and responsibilities to each individual, both individually and as part of a team. The old saying that there is no “I” in “team” has some truth to it. However, each person brings unique abilities. We need those “I”ndividuals to maximize the application of their skill sets and abilities to achieve peak performance. Their contributions to the team and the organization as a whole.
P.E.A.K.™ Performance
When establishing the goals and objectives of your company, it is essential to define four key criteria for PEAK performance: Purpose, Execution, Accountability, and Key Performance Indicators. You and your organization will benefit from the clarity of knowing what needs to be done, who is responsible for doing it, and how performance will be measured. The organization can be effectively aligned to maximize resource utilization by identifying the characteristics of its PEAK goals, breaking them down into components, and assigning them to projects, teams, groups, and individuals. Keeping these unifying characteristics woven throughout the various levels ensures that your organization works as a cohesive unit rather than working against each other.
Purpose
You set a goal. It must be clear, something that can be conveyed to the entire organization, and it needs to be connected to a Purpose that motivates the organization to act, individually and cohesively. One organization with which I worked set a goal for its sales force to meet with 50 prospects per week. Why? The obvious answer is “to make a sale,” but why 50? Why not 40 or 20? They set a target goal of 50 prospect meetings per week because they knew that fewer than 10% of those meetings would convert into high-probability sales leads.
Execution
You can’t do everything. You must be able to rely on your team to execute. A well-qualified team makes execution easier. When you have clear goals and a stated purpose behind those goals, you are in a position to enable your team to go to work and be effective. Execution has many paths, but only one goal. Your team needs the latitude to select the approach they take within the parameters of the goal and purpose. You set direction, guidelines, and methods/processes for execution that specify the things that “must” be done a certain way, but give each person the responsibility to exercise discretion that takes maximum advantage of their skill sets, experience, and education.
Accountability
Where there is clarity of purpose and delegation of responsibility to execute, accountability must also be present. You are performing and getting results … or you aren’t. You achieve your goals, meet key performance requirements, including deadlines and timelines for execution, and you are measured on that performance. Everyone has to pull their weight and get results. An organization does no one any good by allowing or tolerating poor performance. As a manager, you must be clear about the expectations of performance, fair in evaluating and enforcing those requirements, and prompt in correcting unacceptable behavior. Everyone is accountable to the organization and to other team members for completing the assigned work.
Key performance indicators
To enforce accountability, you must be able to measure performance. Performance is best measured against objective criteria. Going back to the sales meeting example, if you need 50 meetings a week and have a five-member sales team, each member is responsible for 10 meetings. The clearer the metric, the easier it is to observe the execution and hold individuals and teams accountable.
Is your organization working at PEAK performance? Does your team know where the organization is headed and their role within it? Do they know what they are responsible for doing and when? What do they see as the purpose behind the goals and metrics? Do they know what they are being measured against?
Updated June 2025
–By Lea Strickland
Lea Strickland, M.B.A., is the founder of Technovation Entrepreneur, a program that helps entrepreneurs turn their ideas into businesses. Strickland is the author of “Out of the Cubicle and Into Business” and “One Great Idea!”. She has over 20 years of experience in leadership at Fortune 500 and Global 100 companies, including Ford, Solectron, and Newell.