Most organisations set goals. But most also struggle to achieve them. The problem is not the people. The problem is the way goals are set.
The annual ritual: every year, leaders sit down and write goals. These goals go into a document. The document goes into a folder. By February, no one remembers what was written in January. This is not unusual. It is the norm.
Three familiar problems:
- Goals are set once and forgotten. Written at the start of the year, reviewed at the end. Nothing happens in between. No check-ins, no course correction, no accountability.
- Goals measure activity, not progress. Teams track how busy they are, not how much they have moved forward. Calls made, reports submitted, meetings attended. These are activities, not outcomes.
- Goals are disconnected from strategy. Each department sets its own goals. Sales goes one way, operations another. No one checks whether these add up to something meaningful.
A question worth asking: if your organisation wiped its goals today and started fresh, would anyone notice a difference in how people work tomorrow? If the answer is no, the goals were never really driving anything.
What needs to change: goals need to be few in number, focused on outcomes not activities, reviewed regularly not once a year, and connected to what the business is trying to achieve. This is exactly what OKRs are designed to do.