4 Pitfalls to Avoid When Setting Goals

Keep these four mistakes in mind when setting goals for your business unit.

Even if you set great goals, you might not get the behaviors you want if you fall in some common pitfalls. There are several major common departmental goal-setting pitfalls that you can avoid.

Setting conflicting goals

The first is not looking at an integrated view of all your goals. You may miss dependencies across departments. You might not see conflicting goals. To fix this, do a goal review for all your business units and business partners across departments. Look for places where one is dependent upon another. Look for goals that are in conflict with one another, and spend time revising the goals accordingly.

Not aligning incentives

Another pitfall is not aligning incentives. The behaviors you want and the behaviors you’re paying for might not match up. To fix this, understand the drivers of behavior. Monitor behavior and ensure it matches what you’re asking for. Before you roll out an incentive plan, try to break that incentive plan. Think about the bad behaviors people might demonstrate, and change the plan before you roll it out.

Setting overly aggressive goals

Another common pitfall is setting your goals too aggressively. Halfway through the year, people see they’re so far behind and they just give up. The way to fix this is to set a stretch or commit goal. Be willing to revise your goals as the market changes.

Not tying goals to strategy

The last pitfall is not communicating how goals tie to the broader strategy. People don’t see where their activities fit in. The fix is to tie the strategic plan communication to the goal rollout communication. Making the links between strategy and goals explicit. If the team is left confused about what the goals are and why they’re being pursued or they see the goals as unrealistic, you won’t have their commitment to achieving them.

Spending time reviewing your goals, thinking through the strategic context, and making sure you have a good set of integrated goals is going to drive the behaviors you want and help you hit the numbers at the top of your strategic plan.

Want to learn more about setting business unit goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to set business unit goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

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