What would happen if you were to get up right now, leave your office, and walk the halls of your business? What if you stopped everyone you met and asked, “Hey, what are your goals for the month?”

The first question you’d need to ask is whether every single person in your organization is setting goals appropriate to the most important parts of their job. The parts outlined in your business strategy.

If you walked down the halls and randomly stopped any employee to ask them about their goals, how many people could answer that accurately and to strategy? The first thing they’d need is to understand the company’s most vital factors – and their individual contribution toward the health and growth of the business. If every single one of your employees, from executive leaders to the front-line, can’t say what scale they’re being measured on, that’s a key problem, right there. What if you asked, “What’s it going to take for the company to win this quarter?”

Unless you can get a specific, direct answer from every single person, your company isn’t aligned.

Here are three questions anyone, executive to front-line, should be able to answer:

• What’s your goal for the month?
• What are you focused on, quarterly?
• What are our company’s most Vital Factors?

When I was CEO of Restaurants on the Run, I had a weekly call with the whole company., a 15-minute video call about what’s happening, and about our company’s most Vital Factors. I’d ask team leads to speak up about what’s happening in each department and region. I’d ask each one, “What’s the number one thing you’re working on right now, and how does it relate to the company’s overall strategic plan?” We’d bring up good news and important events, we’d recognize people who were doing great thing, and we’d make sure everyone understood the most important things each week that related to our growth and strategic plan. Just that little bit of communication, every week, discussing the things that were really important to our strategy. And that kept everyone aligned.​

You need a permanent cadence of weekly communication, and you need to actively celebrate good work. But more importantly, you have to bridge everything the teams are doing to your overall strategy, and let people see how their day-to-day workload supports that strategy. And you need to do it consistently. That’s the only way you’ll see constant progress.