This interview is with Manasvini Krishna, Founder at Boss as a Service.

Manasvini Krishna, Founder, Boss as a Service

Manasvini, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your journey to becoming an expert in goal setting?

I am a lawyer by training, but a coder and productivity coach by passion. I got into productivity as a concept because of my personal experience and fascination with akrasia, or procrastination. Exploring the different ways in which people can overcome procrastination and achieve their ultimate ambitions, I found that setting goals, big or small, is the first step in pushing yourself towards effort and consistency.

What key experiences in your career have shaped your perspective on effective goal setting in a business environment?

So far in my career, I have shifted from law to coding to productivity coaching. Such dramatic transitions would not have been achievable if I had not set specific goals for myself—with deadlines and strategies—and followed through with the plans. I learned what kind of goals to set, how to break them down into the smallest steps possible, why I should be realistic about deadlines, and how I can keep myself productive while completing the work I set out to do. In a way, I was learning about effective goal-setting in the most practical setting.

You've mentioned breaking down large goals into smaller steps. Can you share a specific example of a time you used this approach to achieve a particularly challenging goal?

Let's consider setting up the website for my productivity platform, Boss as a Service. The basic step in building the site is coding—but the most this can give you is a generic web page that doesn't attract clients. So I had to figure out my brand design, website navigation, a portal for clients who sign up, and an internal platform for my team. Obviously, all this has to work in sync, but I can't combine the different aspects unless each of them is effective on their own. So, I took it one step at a time, figuring out what I liked best, and then putting the whole thing together. It may seem like this made the whole process longer and more complicated than it needed to be, but the opposite is true. By doing a little at a time, I was able to create success spirals and achieve more than I would have if tried to do everything at once.

How do you personally maintain motivation and focus when working towards ambitious goals, especially when facing obstacles or setbacks?

Motivation and focus mean different things to different people. For me, positive feedback and constructive criticism are great motivating factors. I think of myself as being positive in general, but I find that I am able to move forward from setbacks and challenges when I focus on what I have learned from them, while reminding myself of everything I have achieved to that point. In terms of focus, I use a simple hack called time-boxing—dividing my day into specific blocks of time, each focused on a specific task. For instance, I feel the most creative and productive in the morning, so that is when I do all my coding. In the afternoon, I do admin work such as taking meetings or answering messages.

Many of our readers are business leaders looking to inspire their teams. How can leaders effectively communicate goals in a way that fosters buy-in and enthusiasm among team members?

The best way to generate enthusiasm about a goal is to make it personal. While setting and communicating goals, it's always helpful to tell the team why they need to care about the finish line. Sure, the main aim is to help the business grow and develop, but give the employees a little skin in the game, and they will be more motivated to make it happen. Of course, I don't mean to encourage false promises of salary appraisals and promotions—but try to understand what your employees want in their careers and lives, and communicate your goals in a way that makes them feel their aims can be met too.

Beyond setting individual goals, how important are shared team goals in driving overall business success? Can you share an example of how you've successfully implemented team-based goal setting?

Shared team goals are extremely important for overall business growth. After all, isn't the whole point of a business to work toward a collective outcome? One way I've been able to implement team-based goal-setting is to make it a challenge: teams need to work together to come up with goals and strategies for a campaign, and then do the preliminary work within a set deadline. These kinds of challenges bring out the best in terms of teamwork, productivity, and overall success.

In your opinion, what role does feedback play in the goal-setting process, both for individuals and teams?

Feedback helps people see what they've missed or are choosing to overlook. Goals can be really personal, and sometimes we're too close to see if we're approaching them the wrong way or not thinking about some of the challenges we face. By having someone else—say, an accountability partner—look over our goals, we can get useful advice on how to improve them and set ourselves up for success.

With the ever-changing business landscape, how can individuals and teams ensure their goals remain relevant and adaptable?

Businesses change in the blink of an eye, primarily when new technology and solutions become available. Take the COVID-19 pandemic years. Companies that had worked a certain way for generations were forced to suddenly go remote, work over Zoom calls and Slack chats, but still keep up the productivity as much as it made sense. And most businesses adapted to make this happen because they accepted and learned the tools available. This is the best example of how to stay relevant and adaptable—acknowledge changes, find new-age solutions that would help keep things afloat, and accept them wholeheartedly.

What final piece of advice would you give to aspiring leaders who are looking to harness the power of goal setting to achieve significant results in their careers?

At the risk of being cliché, I would say you can do anything you want to. All you need is a little bit of focus and strategy while setting your goal and the foresight to pivot, seek help, and even abandon certain tasks if they do not serve you.