. [SOUND]. So we all know that part of the role of the leader, a really important part, is actually making sure that all of your people are going in the same direction at the same time. And, ideally, at the same sort of pace - and that's not easy to achieve. Crucially, the best way of doing that, is about the way you set objectives for people. And it's worth reflecting on just how you go about that process. Our collective experience is that in the main, nobody comes to work with the express intention of doing difficult things, making life awkward and unpleasant for their colleagues, and co-workers, and just doing a bad job. Okay. there may be one or two mal-contents that you do come across in your experience, but, in the main, people come with the clear intent, the wanting, to do a good job at work. So the challenge for you, as a leader, is how to harness that, wanting to do a good job, and to get it directed in the direction that you want them to go. So setting objectives is not always straightforward, and particularly in our times of flexible working, remote and hybrid working, with people spread to the corners of the world, or even just across the country and the continent using technology. Making sure that your people are as clear as possible on what is expected of them. What "good" looks like, and how they can deliver that, is vitally, vitally important. In most industries, you can find quantitative measures that work, you can put numbers on things. But this becomes especially challenging when you're dealing with creative, or service industries, or places where knowledge-based output is part of the work. But just because this is challenging, doesn't mean you should be avoiding doing it. Arguably it is probably the most important thing that you have to do with your people. So the crucial element is to make sure they know what's expected, how they're going to be measured, and how what they're doing fits into the bigger picture. Because if they understand where they fit into the bigger picture, it means they can make decisions themselves about how the work is done and where the bits fit in. So for all of these reasons, it's vitally important that people have clear understanding of their objectives. And at one level, this is not glamorous work. In fact, it can be seen as bordering on the mundane. And we've often heard leaders bemoaning the fact that they've got to go into a round of objective-setting meetings and how tedious these are. We'd make exactly the opposite argument. These are crucially important meetings. So, as we move forward, what we're going to be doing is offering some guidance, some thoughts, some help as to how to do this and do it well. Your people want to know what "good" looks like, how can they do a good job, and for you, the important thing is to help them understand that in the context of what they're doing.