That’s what it feels like to work in a team with poorly set goals. If you don’t know the destination, how can you possibly figure out the directions?
Having the right goals, however, set you up for success. I saw it as a consultant with McKinsey & Company, as a leader of a team of product managers at a tech scale-up, and in the Stanford MBA program.
Luckily, you don’t need to be a manager to influence your team’s goals. Sometimes, all it takes is a well-placed question to improve your goals a notch.
So whether you’re a manager or not — if you want to set winning goals, avoid these eight blunders.
Blunders to Avoid:
1. Reaching too high
Tempting to aim for the stars, eh? I’ve fallen for this trap over and over.
I thought that even if my team didn’t reach the goal, we’d still achieve more than if we had set a lower goal.
But even if you’re trying to shoot a cannonball, you wouldn’t aim for the stars. You’d aim with an angle: