Getting What You Want: Reverse-Engineering Outcomes with the GWYW Tool

Stop yelling “work harder” and start mapping goals to the weekly activities that actually create them.

The Demo Desert That Became a Revenue Oasis

Last spring, SyncStream, a 40-person B2B SaaS startup, had one headline KPI: “Add $3 million in new-logo ARR by December 31.” The CRO repeated it in every stand-up, plastered it in Slack headers, and even printed it on coffee mugs. Yet by June, the team was barely pacing $2 million. Pipelines looked thin, win rates drifted, and reps blamed “the market.”

During a quarterly session, their EOS Implementer drew a four-box diagram labeled Getting What You Want (GWYW) on a whiteboard and asked everyone to shelve laptops for ten minutes. By the end of the exercise, SyncStream discovered three activities completely in their control that predicted new revenue better than any pep talk. They set clear weekly targets, added them to the company Scorecard, and reviewed progress every Monday.

Result? SyncStream hit $3 million ARR five weeks early without new headcount or budget. The only change: they stopped confusing outputs with inputs and let GWYW do its magic.

Why Most Goals Stall at “Do More Stuff”

Entrepreneurial companies thrive on big outcomes: revenue milestones, product launches, customer-satisfaction scores. But leaders often skip the messy middle between dream and task. They announce, “We need 50 percent growth,” then spray the organization with generic orders: “Book more demos. Close deals faster. Push marketing.”

The problem is, outcomes are lagging results. You discover success or failure only after the scoreboard posts. Without explicit, controllable inputs, teams default to busywork—anything that feels like progress. The GWYW tool ends that guessing game by forcing you to:

1. Define the outcome in concrete terms.
2. Brainstorm every activity that could move the needle.
3. Rank those activities by impact and control.
4. Turn the top ones into weekly measurables on your Scorecard.

Sounds simple, yet most teams never slow down long enough to do it. Let’s run through each step so your next big goal doesn’t die in the fog of “work harder.”

Step 1: State the Outcome in Concrete Numbers

Open a blank sheet and write “What I Want” at the top. Now craft a SMART, numeric, time-bound statement—no wiggle words. Compare:

Vague: “Improve recruiting.” Concrete: “Hire five A-player SDRs by September 30.”

SyncStream’s CRO wrote: “$3 million net new ARR from new logos by December 31.” Instantly, everyone knew what winning looked like and when the buzzer sounded. Without clarity here, every later step devolves into debate.

Step 2: Flood the Page With Possible Activities

Under the outcome, draw a giant box labeled “What We Could Do.” Fill it with every activity, big or small, that might influence success. Quantity first, judgment later. Encourage wild ideas:

• Customer-referral incentives
• LinkedIn video outreach
• Vertical webinars
• SDR call blitz
• Paid search retargeting
• Channel-partner trainings

Stickies on a wall or a shared Miro board keep energy high. At SyncStream, the session produced 27 ideas in 15 minutes, from predictable cold calls to a quirky suggestion of sending handwritten notes to conference leads.

Step 3: Rank by Impact & Control

Now apply a brutal two-axis filter:

• Impact: How strongly does the activity move the outcome?
• Control: How much influence do we have over executing it every week?

Divide a flip-chart into four quadrants:

1. High Impact / High Control – Gold.
2. High Impact / Low Control – Risky partnerships, regulatory wins.
3. Low Impact / High Control – Easy but minor.
4. Low Impact / Low Control – Trash.

Have each participant vote with colored dots or digital emojis. Discuss briefly, then drag the top activities into quadrant 1. SyncStream’s winners:

Billboard ads on I-95? Zero control over response, so they landed in quadrant 4, and the marketing director happily killed the budget line.

Step 4: Turn Top Activities Into Weekly Measurables

A high-impact activity still isn’t actionable until you specify who does what by when. Convert each gold-quadrant item into a Scorecard metric:

Set green/red thresholds rooted in math. SyncStream knew 180 InMails → 24 calls → 11 demos → $58K ARR at historical close rates. Hitting green each week guarantees pace for $3 million by year-end.

Add the metrics to your company or departmental Scorecard. Review them every Monday during the Level 10 meeting:

1. The owner reads the number—green or red.
2. If red, drop it to the Issues list.
3. IDS to get to the root quickly; assign a one-week to-do.

As always in EOS, one-on-ones remain optional tools used only when a seat’s metric stays red multiple weeks and deeper coaching helps.

AI Assist: Brainstorm High-Impact Activities in Two Minutes

Need fresh ideas? Paste this into ChatGPT:

Prompt: “Act as an EOS Implementer. My outcome: [insert goal] by [date]. Brainstorm ten weekly activities that rate High Impact / High Control for achieving it. Rank them, then provide a sample of green/red goals and the seat that should own each.”

You’ll get a draft list—sometimes obvious, sometimes creative. Compare to reality, merge the gems into your GWYW board, and drop the clunkers.

Coaching & IDS: When Activities Turn Red

Metrics will go red. That’s the point: early warning. Treat red as a flashlight, not a flogging stick.

Level 10 Flow:

• Metric owner calls out “red.”
• Team drops it to Issues list.
• Twelve-minute IDS uncovers the root—maybe reply scripts need work, or the CRM report broke.
• Assign one to-do due next week.

If a seat stays red for three weeks, schedule a short coaching conversation. Remember, EOS does not require weekly one-on-ones; you use them surgically. Tone matters:

“Your discovery-call number has been red for three weeks. What’s blocking progress, and how can I support you this week?”

Because the metric was co-created, the discussion feels collaborative, not punitive.

Real-World Proof: GWYW Across Functions

• Manufacturing launch – A 75-person plastics company needed a new product out by Q4. GWYW revealed that “tooling vendor response time” and “internal first-article passes” were the only controllable bottlenecks. Weekly targets on those two variables cut launch delay risk by 60 %.
• Customer-success churn fight – A managed-IT provider aimed to drop churn from 4.2 % to 2.5 %. GWYW uncovered “Quarterly Business Reviews completed” and “time-to-resolution for Sev-2 tickets” as top levers. Within six months, churn hit 2.3 %.
• Culture shift – An agency wanted “higher accountability.” GWYW turned the fuzzy wish into “Scorecard rows with green >75 %” and “Level 10 on-time start.” Morale lifted because team members saw concrete proof of alignment.

The pattern repeats: clarify outcome, list levers, rank, measure, and coach. GWYW handles everything from sales and ops to culture and cash.

Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)

Your 7-Day GWYW Sprint

1. Book a 60-minute GWYW workshop—whiteboard or virtual board.
2. Write the outcome—SMART, numeric, time-bound.
3. Brainstorm activities—no judgment.
4. Vote on Impact/Control—mark gold quadrant.
5. Turn each gold activity into one measurable with owner and weekly goal.
6. Add measurables to the Scorecard.
7. Review next Monday; IDS reds, celebrate greens.

Stick with the rhythm for 13 weeks. When the outcome turns green ahead of schedule, like SyncStream hitting ARR early, raise the bar and run GWYW on the next audacious goal.

Bottom Line

Big goals don’t crumble because teams lack desire; they crumble because teams lack clarity on controllable inputs. The Getting What You Want tool dissects any objective—revenue, product, culture—and rebuilds it as a set of weekly actions one person can own today. Reverse-engineer your outcome, measure what matters, coach when numbers dip, and watch “someday” become “already done.”

Ready to test it? Download the free 90-Day Scorecard Template, schedule your first GWYW workshop this Friday, and start getting exactly what you want, one measurable week at a time.