How to Set Goals Like a Pro (5 Mistakes to Avoid)

Goal-setting is everywhere at work. Unfortunately, it's hardly anyone's favorite exercise.

As a result – inconsistent goal-setting is everywhere. This is a shame, because it leads to situations like:

• Not getting credit where it's due
• Having to repeatedly justify why you're not sandbagging
• Feeling demotivated because your efforts aren't recognized

There's no rocket science to goal-setting – but it's more nuanced than most people think.

So today, we'll talk about 5 key mistakes to look out for when it comes to goal-setting at work:

1. Not "laddering up."
2. Focusing on the wrong "needles."
3. Not calibrating your targets.
4. Ignoring the "how."
5. Falling for "red herring" metrics.

❌ Mistake #1: Not "laddering up."

Let's start with a seemingly pedantic point: your goals should ladder up to the objectives of your team or organization.

Why is this point worth establishing?

Because it's quite easy to fixate on what appears to matter in our own worlds, and forget that it is secondary (or even irrelevant) from a org perspective.

Does this only happen to people who weren't working on the right things to begin with? Not at all. It's quite easy to be "doing your job" while still setting the wrong goalposts.

For instance, I remember that during my first few months at Google, part of my role required supporting a sales team with revenue intelligence.

Of course, this meant that whenever there were issues of customer accounts not reflecting properly in the system? I would be the first port of call to help troubleshoot.

(It was one of my least favorite activities – and it took up a lot of my time – but it was part of "my job.")

From a personal goal-setting perspective? I could've easily built in an OKR for myself to "provide timely support to sellers for revenue intelligence errors."

It wouldn't have been wrong – but it would've been suboptimal. Because that's not an objective that would've mattered for my org.

Instead, had I thought of myself as a true owner of the business? I would've identified two rather simple objectives:

1. Ensure maximum accuracy for revenue intelligence
2. Minimize time wasted by sellers on trouble-shooting

I would've then set goals that ladder up to org-level objectives, e.g. –

• Ensure bugs get fixed systematically (e.g. by influencing product teams and securing support)
• Minimize waste of sellers' time (e.g. by developing a more efficient feedback process)

When we remind ourselves to set goals that ladder up to org-level objectives, we're not just looking for wording changes or cosmetic adjustments.

Instead, we're reminding ourselves to "get out of the weeds," so we can set goals that contribute meaningfully.

❌ Mistake #2: Focusing on the wrong "needles."

It's good to have lofty, ambitious goals.

But if you can't realistically "move the needle" with your efforts? Then it's not the right goal for you.

For instance, imagine if your role required acquiring proprietary datasets to enrich your company's software product.

Which of the following might be good measures of success for you?

1. Company stock price growth
2. Company market share gained
3. Improved user satisfaction
4. Reduced user churn
5. Data volume acquired
6. Top partners signed
7. New verticals covered

While the answer will certainly vary based on your scope, it should be readily apparent that #1 through #4 are the least useful.

It's not that they're unimportant (in fact quite the contrary). It's just that they're too far away. You can't realistically know if you're actually moving the needle.

So while they might be great org-level northstar metrics? They're much less useful as individual goalposts.

By comparison, #5 through #7 are much more practical at the individual level. Your efforts will directly move the needle – and you're able to assume proper ownership.

❌ Mistake #3: Not calibrating your targets.

Here's an under-appreciated point: even if you've identified the perfect metric, it can still be useless if you fail to set the right target.

For instance, consider the following goalposts:

• Drive 3% growth in new customers
• Sign 20 new deals this year
• Grow qualified leads by 10%
• Publish 5 external case studies

Should we consider these ambitious goals? Or a sign of sandbagging?

Or somewhere in between?

It turns out that no one knows "how high is high" – unless you properly contextualize.

This is even more critical when there's no readily apparent yardstick, e.g. if you're dealing with first-of-kind or early-stage work.

The last thing you want? Setting what you believe to be a perfectly ambitious goal, only for it to be seen as arbitrary and baseless.

In fact, this is also why the value of goal-setting exercises tends to come from the process of benchmarking and calibrating.

Because only then do people try to answer questions such as:

• "Does this target make sense in relation to our competition?"
• "What has to be true for us to assume this growth trajectory?"
• "What could enable us to overdeliver against this target?"
• "What upside and downside scenarios are we assuming?"

And this is often where the most valuable thinking happens.

❌ Mistake #4: Ignoring the "how."

The best operators never approach goal-setting in isolation. They don't just come up with a target and call it a day.

Instead, they use it as an opportunity to also figure out how they're going to get there.

Because here's the thing: you can't establish proper goalposts if you only have a fuzzy view on the strategy you intend to employ.

The what and the how are deeply intertwined.

Over the years at Google, I've reviewed many sales plans across different teams. And the best plans I see? The owners never talk about targets in isolation.

Instead, they explicitly articulate what they'll do to achieve their proposed targets.

This is critical for two reasons:

1. Accountability: Sometimes you hit your targets due to unexpected tailwinds. Sometimes you miss your targets due to uncontrollable factors. Either way, you can only have true accountability if you have a clear view on the how.
2. Ability to course-correct: Plans don't always get executed to perfection; that's fine. But you need a way to retrace your footsteps and figure out what could've been done differently.

Remember: you cannot establish meaningful goalposts without knowing what levers you'll employ.

The "what" should not exist without the "how."

❌ Mistake #5: Falling for "red herring" metrics.

Sometimes, having the wrong goalposts in place is even worse than not having any at all.

For instance, consider the following measures of success:

• For an investment team: % of total capital deployed
• For a marketing manager: # of campaigns launched
• For a user acquisition team: amount of incentives given out

These are what I call "red herring" goalposts. It's not that they're irrelevant: they're just simply not the right yardsticks.

And if you mistakenly optimize for them? It can actually lead to hurtful outcomes.

So instead, consider the following:

• For the investment team: a better goal would be to source quality leads and deliver profitable returns (NOT to deploy capital as fast as possible)
• For the marketing manager: a better goal would be to deliver high-performing campaigns (NOT to hit a certain "count" of campaigns)
• For the user acquisition team: a better goal would be to acquire users at the right costs (NOT to maximize the amount of incentives disbursed)

There's nothing wrong with tracking operational metrics or other health indicators.

Just don't conflate them with actual goalposts.