Goals Aren’t just for Doing: They’re for Growing

Most Goals in Business Are Stupid

Not because the people setting them are, but because organisations lack the cultural structure and focus on growing and releasing value that allows people to set meaningful goals.

Instead, they rely on frameworks like SMART goals or KPIs — often without anyone explaining the purpose of a goal, or how to set a good one.

A goal is not just about getting something done. Goals are also about growing both the business, and the individual. Goals that encourage growth are also more interesting, more exciting and people can garner more enthusiasm for them.

A Real Example

In one company, the leadership team went away for an expensive day at a posh hotel and returned with four goals for their team leaders and teams:

1. Speak to 10 people across the business about the internal coaching function.
2. Build a Lean Portfolio Management playbook, discovery model, and framework for the team to use.
3. Hold 10 training sessions for the wider team this quarter.
4. Deliver Project X on time and on budget.

At first glance, these goals seem reasonable.

But here’s the problem:

Why These Goals Don’t Work

1. Activity-Based, Not Outcome-Based

All four are activities, not outcomes.

Speaking to 10 people, building a playbook, delivering training, completing a project — none of these define success in terms of real impact or growth. There are no outcomes, just activity.

What does speaking to 10 people achieve? What are we speaking to them about? What do we want them to do when we do speak to them?

A good goal answers: What outcome do we want? How will this move the business forward or help people grow?

2. Pre-Solutioned Goals

Goals 1–3 already prescribe solutions without explaining the problem, nor whether the solutions themselves were rightly decided upon.

• Goal 1: Speak to 10 people about the coaching function. But which 10 people? What should they understand? Without a clear message, team leads would just talk to anyone, in different ways, achieving little.
• Goal 2: Build a Lean Portfolio Management playbook. But no one had asked for it. Creating it now wastes time and money. Better: diagnose what problems exist before creating solutions.
• Goal 3: Hold 10 training sessions. Training alone rarely changes behaviour. On-the-job coaching produces real growth.

3. Goals That Are Already Work

• Goal 4: Deliver Project X. Team leaders were already responsible for some part of project delivery.
• Setting this as a goal adds no value and ignores factors outside their control. What would happen if the project fails to deliver on time or budget due to factors outside of the team leader's control?

Deadlines and Measures Are Weak

These goals technically had deadlines (the quarter) and some activity measures. But vague deadlines and activity metrics rarely drive meaningful results. Work expands to fill the time. Goals need specific deadlines and measures tied to outcomes.

How to Reframe Goals

Here’s how we reframed the original goals into growth-oriented, outcome-based goals:

Goal 1 – Awareness & Pipeline

Problem: Our pipeline is drying up. 80% of employees (from a survey) don’t know what we do or the value we add. We risk being closed down as our value realisation is not going to meet the investment made.

Goal: By 15th September, generate 15 new opportunities into the pipeline.

Measures and Activities:

• Clear purpose statement and catalogue of services completed.
• Lead generation funnel implemented with free gifts, small opportunities and full time engagement.
  • 👉 See this post on marketing an internal coaching or consulting function.
• Repeat the survey: 50% of respondents understand what we do.
• Every team member can confidently explain our services to peers.
• Freedom to Innovate: Team members are encouraged to test different messaging approaches and channels to see what generates the best engagement.
• Freedom to Innovate: Team members are encouraged to come up with new ways to fill the funnel with suitable leads.
• Measures / Outcomes: Number of leads entering the pipeline and funnel. Number of qualified leads. Number of engagements opened. Number of survey responses that understand our offers and services.

Goal 2 – Capability Building

Problem: Only 5 of 20 team members are competent in value-flow analysis and consulting – the core offering and the reason we have current engagements.

Goal: By 23rd October, 5 more team members are competent in analysis, consulting, and delivery.

Measures and Activities:

• Identify 5 capable team members.
• Pair them with experienced colleagues for on-the-job training.
• Assign them to lead aspects of current engagements, with oversight.
• Freedom to Innovate: Trainees are encouraged to experiment with their own approaches, tools, or techniques, while learning foundational methods.
• Measures / Outcomes: Mentor feedback, mentee feedback, customer feedback, ability of newly trained people to train others...the acid test of whether you know your subject.

Goal 3 – Embedding Practices

Problem: New processes are underused and inconsistent across teams.

Goal: By 30th November, all 20 team members are consistently applying best-practice methods in live engagements.

Measures and Activities:

• Weekly check-ins to review adoption.
• Documentation of process application.
• Feedback loop with peers and leaders.
• Freedom to Innovate: Team members should propose improvements or alternatives to the processes to increase efficiency or impact (with measures).
• Measures / Outcomes: Everyone understand how we work and is consistent. Potential improvements show optimised idea to value flow and customer satisfaction.

Goal 4 – Understanding Customer Pain Points for New Offerings

Problem: We lack deep insights into customer needs, limiting the creation of valuable new products or services, and hampering our ability to expand the pipeline of work.

Goal: By 31st December, the team will uncover key customer pain points and develop at least two potential product/service concepts to address them.

Measures and Activities:

• Conduct 20 structured customer interviews or surveys to gain insights.
• Map pain points, prioritising based on severity and opportunity.
• Generate at least two concept proposals with potential value assessment.
• Present findings to leadership for feedback and next steps.
• Freedom to Innovate: Team members can explore multiple approaches to solve customer problems, including experimental prototypes, pilot programs, or creative service ideas.
• Measures / Outcomes: Clarity over business pain points and proposals for two solutions we could deliver. Survey findings will give further data points.

The Takeaway

Most business goals fail because they focus on doing rather than growing. They focus on activities rather than outcomes.

A meaningful goal:

• Solves a problem or opens an opportunity.
• Has measurable outcomes, not just activities.
• Includes growth for the individual or team.
• Engages people emotionally — they understand why it matters.

Goals aren’t just things to check off related to our delivery of work through our day job. They are levers for learning, growth, and real impact. A good goal energises and motivates. A bad goal means business as usual or activities with no compelling outcome or reason to do them.

And try not to set goals that are outside of your control, and try to avoid setting goals that are just doing your day-job well - like delivering X project when you're not the one running the project, or turn up and do a good job on project X.