2nd September 2025
How to Measure Aspirational Goals
G'day, .
In a recent global PuMP Team meeting, a topic came up about goals that follow a form like this: "best X company in the world". Do you have any?
Our PuMP Team have seen many examples of these in our client's organisations, and we know how hard they can be to measure.
It inspired today's topic in Measure Up, where I unpack two shifts in thinking to make more sense of aspirational goals so they can be meaningfully measured and more likely achieved.
In today's newsletter:
- Feature article: "How to Measure Aspirational Goals"
- Latest insights from our Global PuMP Team: measurement ghosting, breakthrough seekers, measure broadcasting
- Upcoming events & training: Webcast on measuring progress, PuMP Blueprint workshops, Using Smart Charts online training
- Educational video: "3 Reasons to Avoid KPI Indexes and Scores"
Stacey Barr
PuMP Creator and PuMP Academy Host
From our Global PuMP Team...
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Upcoming Events & Training...
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Free Webcast: Four Ways Leaders Can Measure & Monitor Progress
Coming up soon we have a series of free educational webcasts in various time zones around the world, about , using a framework to help find the right balance between measuring activity versus impact, and measuring effort versus leverage. If you'd like to join us, or want access to the replay, you can register for a webcast in your time zone here:
- UK & Europe | Thursday 4 September 9:00am BST | REGISTER HERE
- Australia & New Zealand | Wednesday 10 September 10:00am AEST | REGISTER HERE
- Canada | Wednesday 17 September 1:00pm PDT | REGISTER HERE
- Africa & the Middle East | Thursday 25 September 10:00am EAT | REGISTER HERE
- United States | Wednesday 1 October 4:00pm EDT | REGISTER HERE
PuMP Blueprint Training
OPTION 1: Our public PuMP Blueprint Workshops are a great way to get the KPI know-how you need, collaborating and learning with others.
- UK & Europe | September 8-12 | 5 half days, online | REGISTER HERE
- Canada | October 20-24 | 5 half days, online | REGISTER HERE
- Australia & New Zealand | October 8-9 & 13-15 | 5 half days, online | REGISTER HERE
- Africa & Middle East | November 12-14 | 3 full days, Johannesburg SA | REGISTER HERE
- USA | 12-13 &: 17-19 November | 5 half days, online | REGISTER HERE
OPTION 2: You can host your own private PuMP Workshop for your colleagues, for a more tailored experience:
OPTION 3: If live training doesn't suit you, read more and register for our PuMP Blueprint Self-Paced Program.
Using Smart Charts Training
Create the singularly most powerful chart for your KPIs and dramatically increase the speed and impact of performance improvement. Learn all the details, with loads of examples and practice, in one of our upcoming live programs:
- To suit The Americas | September 24-26 | 3 half days, online | REGISTER HERE
- To suit Australia & Asia Pacific | October 22-24 | 3 half days, online | REGISTER HERE
Announcing the new PuMP Recharge!
PuMP Recharge is our official refresher program for our PuMP Blueprint alumni. From 4 September the self-paced, online series of short lessons to help refresh your knowledge, boost your confidence, and make a bigger difference with your PuMP Blueprint will be available. If you qualify and would like more information, please email us for the details.
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How to Measure Aspirational Goals
It's common for strategic goals to embody aspirations like world-class, best-practice, leading-edge, best-in-class, and world-leading. But how do we measure such goals in a way that helps us turn them from aspiration to actuality?
Aspirational goals aim for more than just incremental improvement or increased stability in volatile times. They boldly aim to "be the best", like these:
- "Deliver world-leading research and world-class education" – from a university
- "Build a world-class curriculum" – from a national education department
- "To be the best city in the country" – a city council (local government)
- "Maximize our value as a leading practices federal agency" – federal government agency
- "To be the safest industrial company in the world" – motion and control engineering company
- "Grow as an aerospace and defence leader" – aerospace manufacturing company
- "To be a global healthcare leader, delivering outstanding outcomes in health and education" – healthcare and hospital service
- "A bold vision for [our community] to be the healthiest people in the world" – state government health department
- "To be a world-leading institute in the field of infection and immunity" – research, laboratory and diagnostic services
Aspirational goals have their place, particularly in sectors seeking breakthrough change. But like many strategic goals that are written with the best intentions to inspire excellence, aspirational goals are also a challenge to meaningfully measure. And we all know that without meaningful measurement, excellence will remain elusive.
There are exceptions, but they are few. For the aspirational goal above, "To be the best city in the country", is measured deliberately and thoughtfully using a recognised Social Progress Index. This index is made up of 57 measures (they call them drivers) such as child mortality rate, equal access to quality education, satisfaction with water quality, political rights and vulnerable employment. It's not a
light-weight metric that can be brainstormed over morning coffee and cake.
Most organisations with aspirational goals, however, don't have meaningful ways to measure them. For the aspirational goal above, "Deliver world-leading research and world-class education", the measures they chose for research were Annual Research Income and Research Income per Staff FTE. These are both easy to measure, but neither provide direct evidence of how 'world-leading' their research actually is.
Poor measures of aspirational goals are usually caused by two common mistakes we make when trying to measure them:
- We seek measures that evidence the achievement of the aspiration, asking questions like "how do we measure 'best practice'?" or "how do we measure 'leading edge'?
- We overlook the need to detail the specific performance results that most need to lift in the thing in which we want to achieve best practice or leading edge or world class status
Two shifts in how we approach the measurement of aspirational goals can lead us to much more relevant measures that also direct our efforts to the changes that will make the biggest leaps toward achieving those aspirations...
Discover more at PuMP Academy
Watch Our Free Educational Videos...
Here is one video that builds a little on this month's Measure Up topic:
3 Reasons to Avoid KPI Indexes and Scores. You might think that rolling up your performance measures or KPIs into a weighted score or composite index is a great strategy to simplify your dashboard, to deal with lots of measures, or to create proxies for intangible goals. Think again.
Visit PuMP's YouTube channel for more practical and educational videos on performance measurement and strategy execution.
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Can PuMP Help You, Too?
For greater success with your strategic performance measurement, strategic alignment, and strategy execution, contact us and find out how our suite of PuMP programs could help you.
 
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