Why Structure Matters More Than Goals

Most Januarys start the same for most leaders: look at the goals, determine the priorities, define what changes need to be made, set the timeline, and submit the numbers. It becomes the month of intention to guide our upcoming year. 

Rarely do we stop to examine the structures and support systems that we have in place to support the year we are creating.

Unfortunately, we usually want different outcomes without changing how work is organized. We aim for higher targets while relying on the same patterns and behaviors that gave us last year’s results.

And when things start to slip — usually by the end of Q1 (Q2 if you’re lucky) — the assumption is that the goals were too ambitious, or that we weren’t disciplined enough, or that we are victims of the market, our industry, or our leaders.

The real root cause is often overlooked - not enough structure supporting those goals to deliver them.

What We Usually Get Wrong About Structure 

Structure tends to get a bad reputation because of its association with rigidity, bureaucracy, and control. Or a view that structure is something that slows teams down and limits creativity. Some of us try to avoid structures, relying on memory and good intentions, including the belief that we will figure it out as we go. Sometimes that might work, especially in the beginning when there’s novelty and energy, but when the responsibilities pile up and decisions keep coming, the absence of structure stops feeling like flexibility and starts feeling like friction.

Structure Is What Makes Follow-Through Predictable

At its core, structure does one important thing: it makes follow-through more reliable.

When structure is missing, everything depends on memory, motivation, and constant attention from the leader. That creates a system where progress only happens when someone is pushing. 

Over time, that turns into:

• Micromanagement (even if it’s unintentional)
• Burnout at the leadership level
• Teams waiting for direction instead of taking ownership

Well designed structures shift the burden away from constant oversight and toward shared clarity. It answers basic questions in advance so they don’t have to be solved repeatedly under pressure.

Choosing the Right Kind of Structure

Not all structure is useful. The goal isn’t to add more process. It’s to add enough structure in the places where things consistently break down. 

That usually shows up in a few predictable areas:

• Decisions that linger without ownership
• No mechanism for accountability
• Meetings that create ideas but not actions
• Expectations that are implied but never stated

Structure doesn’t need to be complex to address these. It can be a simple agreement  about who gets decide what, how success is measured, and what happens when something stalls. When those things are clear, you can spend more time leading.

What Personal Structure Can Do — and Where It Falls Short

Personal structure can help, in fact for some it helps a lot. But for someone who struggles with follow-through, the right structure can be difficult to maintain – sometimes even impossible.

At its best, personal structure works because it reduces renegotiation. You decide once, instead of deciding every day. Certain tasks happen at exact times, decisions get made in specific windows under certain criteria, and unfinished work has a place to land instead of floating around in your head.

That kind of structure matters because it will make your personal accountability more likely, creating relief. But this frequently has a ceiling - no matter how well designed it is, it still lives inside your own internal world. You are the one setting the structure. You are the one enforcing it. And when things get busy, stressful, or emotionally loaded, it’s surprisingly easy to stop holding yourself accountable.

You move the meeting with yourself, loosen the definition of “done”, and tell yourself you’ll come back to it later. You do this not because you’re avoiding responsibility — but because humans are very good at justifying their actions to themselves. Even relational structures, like a one-to-one check-in, can start to bend over time. The conversation becomes familiar. The edge dulls. Accountability slowly slides back toward intention instead of action.

That’s the limitation of personal accountability - it relies on your own consistency at the exact moments when consistency is hardest. Personal structure moves accountability out of your head and into your environment, group structure moves it out of the individual entirely.

And that difference matters more than most people realize.

Personal accountability can support change - group accountability is what sustains it.

Group Accountability Requires Visible Structure

Team accountability doesn’t come from motivation talks or shared values statements. It comes from clarity that’s visible and repeatable.

That includes things like:

• Clear ownership, not shared responsibility
• Straightforward accountability mechanisms
• Defined endings
• Regular check-ins that actually close loops and/or provide support

Without these, teams default to politeness, assumption, and avoidance. People stay busy, but progress becomes uneven. A team structure gives a shared reference point, reducing the need for interpretation and makes it easier for people to hold themselves — and each other — accountable without it feeling personal.

Why The Context of Structure Matters Now, at the Beginning of the Year

The beginning of the year is when patterns get set, whether you intend them to or not – and long before anyone realizes it. 

When structure and accountability live only internally, it’s easy to give yourself “out’s” and justifications as to why you don’t have to hold yourself accountable when the year fills up. You have great intentions and mean to follow through, but the pressure increases, the calendar tightens, and the structure slowly starts to crumble.

When the structure and accountability are visible, something different happens. But let’s be very clear here - Accountability isn’t shared. The structure is. Practices become motivation in their visibility. You’ve heard about the observer effect which says that the outcome of a test will be altered simply by being seen (observed). You don’t show up differently because other people are watching you, you show up differently because the structure is itself a reminder and visible accountability structure to help keep you where you want to be.

The patterns you attempt to set now will probably wobble, break, or disappear within a couple of weeks. That’s normal. January is full of good intentions and very little proof. What does matter right now isn’t locking in perfect habits—it’s deciding how you’ll notice when things slip and what will help you re-engage when they do.

Once the year gets loud and full—as it always does—it becomes harder to redesign accountability and expectations without creating friction or fatigue. That’s where a shared structure helps. Not to apply pressure or drive performance, but to make coming back to your commitments feel ordinary instead of heroic. The win isn’t early consistency; it’s having a rhythm and a set of people that make restarting easier when life inevitably intervenes.

Where Making Small Changes Works

Many years ago we created what we called a family Well Being Challenge (the details of this origin story are heavily disputed among our family still) where we each decided what goals we were working towards, and what practices would be necessary to accomplish those goals. We set our challenge to be 16 weeks long, with the rules that every day we send a group text to report completing our practices for the day (or that we did not do that). 

While the exact structures of the Challenge have changed between the initial Challenge and today, what was born out of it is the Making Small Changes program. At its core, Making Small Changes is a community – a small group of people, each with their own goals and practices, working as a shared structure for accountability. It’s about doing small things consistently over time, inside of a structure that makes follow-through more likely.

We provide the structure by maintaining the container: working with each participant to identify their goals, what actions and practices would help put them in their Goldilocks zone to make progress towards achieving those goals, daily check-ins to help prevent drift, and monthly group coaching calls where we take the time to find what worked, what the results were, and what needs to be tweaked the upcoming month.

We’ve created guidelines that create a strong structure and the group strengthens that structure through visibility and consistency. You don’t have to explain why something matters, or manufacture urgency – the group itself is the structure that holds you.

What we’ve seen consistently is that when a shared structure holds the space for accountability (in a community), people no longer need to rely solely on their own internal motivation. They stop allowing themselves to make excuses for delaying or pushing something off, and small actions start to get more traction and results because they are held by the group, creating stability. That’s the difference the group container makes. Not absolving you of personal responsibility, but supporting it in the tough times when personal accountability tends to break down. At the beginning of a year, when patterns are still forming, that structure matters more than most people realize.

What all of this points to is something simple, but easy to miss.

Structure only works if it’s lived. Accountability only matters if it shows up in behavior. Whether that structure is personal, shared, or held by a group, it has to translate into how you actually move through your days — what you notice, what you choose, and what you repeat.

Before you add more goals, more plans, or more commitments to the year ahead, it’s worth slowing down just enough to look at what you’re exploring, what you’re willing to act on, and what you’re prepared to practice consistently.

Not to get it right, or solve anything, but to find a structure that you can rely on when the year fills up.

(If you’re interested in being part of a Mastering Small Changes structure, see below to register for the waitlist).

IAPs

INQUIRIES: Explore What Structure You Actually Need

These are not questions to answer or solve, they’re questions to sit with — ideally with at least one other person.

There’s no right response, no conclusion to reach, and no outcome to find. The value is sitting in the exploration itself.

What kind of structure do I resist — and why?

or

Where in my life does the absence of structure quietly cost me the most?

Notice what comes up in response to either or both of those questions without correcting it.

If the answer feels unclear or unfinished, that’s not a problem — that’s the inquiry doing its work. Real clarity tends to emerge when there’s no pressure for an answer (or the “right” answer).

ACTIONS: Begin Creating Structure Without Having to Overhaul Your Life

Name One Area of Your Life That Would Benefit From a New Action (Doing Something Differently Than You Usually Do)

Identify one place where things consistently drift: decisions, follow-through, communication, or time. Write it down, not to fix it, but to observe it. Like I mentioned earlier, things tend to change simply because they are watched. It’s easier and more effective to watch that area when you DO something - when you take a new action or behavior in that area.  What will you do differently? What will you try?

Choose One Point of Accountability

Decide where accountability will live for that one area. Who will hold you to account for taking that action? What will it look like (your friend will call you to check in on Friday; you’ll send a text to 4 family members, etc.)? The action here is choosing how to hold yourself accountable — not building the perfect system.

Take the Action

Do the thing you designed — do the experiment. Try doing something differently in that area that would benefit from trying something new. Once you’ve done that, sit down with your journal (or a friend) and investigate what happened. How did you feel? Did your action change anything (even if only for a short time)? What was different after you took the action? Would you do it again? Would you tweak it and try something else? 

The important thing here is creating a structure for experimentation: identifying an area of life that would benefit from experimentation —>creating an action you will take (or something to stop doing) ​—> design how you’ll be accountable for your action —>take the action—>conduct an after-experiment review (what happened).

PRACTICES: Let Structure Do the Heavy Lifting

These are not habits to fall into, but consciously designed practices that bring clarity and consistent action to an area that needs your attention.

A practice is: a specific action, plus a quanitity, frequency, duration, and accountability. 

Purpose: Make the Invisible Structure Visible: To help you see how structure already supports (or constrains) your effectiveness— earn to use structure intentionally rather than reactively.

The Practice: Choose one recurring area of your work (e.g., weekly meetings, client follow-up, decision-making, handoffs). Once per week, write out (not just think about) the actual structure that governs that area:

• Who initiates?
• Who decides?
• What happens first, second, third?
• Where does it stall, repeat, or rely on heroics?
• Spend no more than 15 minutes writing out your responses to the questions above. Then, spend 5 minutes to answer two additional questions:
1. What does this structure make easy?
2. What does it make unnecessarily hard?
• Do this once a week, for 4 weeks—each time with a different area of your work.
• What do you notice about structures at work? Would you change anything? How might you tweak your practice to move from observing the structures to leveraging them?

Why These Matter

At the beginning of the year, it’s easy to focus on what you want to accomplish. Most people already know what matters to them. What’s harder is creating the conditions that make follow-through and accountability possible and consistent once the year fills up.

Structure is what supports that. Not as a system to optimize yourself, but as something that reduces drift and makes consistency easier over time. Personal structure can help, but for many people it reaches its limits quickly, especially when things get busy or emotionally complex.

That’s where shared  structures with visible accountability can make a meaningful difference. When accountability is visible in a group, it becomes harder to quietly renegotiate with yourself or let others down. The structure itself does some of the work that individual effort can’t sustain on its own.

NOTE: This is the role of the Making Small Changes program

It’s a community-based program designed to provide a steady structure for accountability through a guided group creation call (focused on building practices that align with what you actually care about), and monthly group coaching calls, with daily accountability.

If you’re interested in building consistency through structure rather than relying on motivation, Making Small Changes is a helpful place to start.

Click here to put yourself on the waiting list (each community is 5-8 people). 

See you there!

Alex