Goal Setting: The Big Picture

You already know how to set your goals, or you wouldn’t be starting your new business or growing your existing one. So we won’t waste your time telling you what you already know. However, we will give you some pointers to help you be more effective in setting achievable goals. We have established the “Three C’s” of Goal Setting:

Compartmentalize

Coherent & Compatible and

Cleverly Crafted

Let’s look at them one at a time.

Compartmentalize

It helps to create goals for specific aspects of your life and business, rather than merging everything into one big blur. We see four distinct areas for goal setting:

• Company Goals
• Product Goals
• Individual Contributor Goals
• Personal Goals

The company goals address growth projections, deliverables, and finances. Product goals address the impact on the marketplace and the specific revenue target for a specific product. Individual contributor goals are set by the individual employee, or by the manager for an individual. They define the employee’s contribution to product and company goals. Finally, each employee is encouraged to set personal goals.

Coherent and Compatible

A key principle of goal setting is to insure that the goals at every level are coherent and compatible with each other. It would be fruitless, for example, for someone to have a personal goal of spending more time with their family, and an individual goal of working overtime for the next quarter in order to release a product. Similarly, if you have a single product that has no immediate capacity to generate revenue, the company goals must reflect that as well.

Cleverly Crafted

Regardless of the category of the goal, every goal should be crafted and worded in such a way that it meets the SMART Goal criteria.

If you are not familiar with SMART Goals, SMART stands for qualities that the goal must have:

S: Specific: exactly what are you going to accomplish

M: Measurable: how do you know that you have accomplished it?

A: Achievable: given the resources available, this goal is possible

R: Relevant: it will make a difference in the overall context

T: Time-bound: a date by which this goal must be completed

There are many websites with expanded definitions of the SMART goals, and we recommend browsing them. Most important, however, is that when you make a goal, you create something you can live with, at least for the next 3 months.

What’s Next

Dive into the details of our categories of goals in these articles:

Setting Company Goals

Setting Product Goals

Setting Individual Goals

Setting Personal Goals

And once you are ready to set you goals, be sure to check out our affiliate website, GoalTribe to help you track your goals and succeed.