Goal or wishful thinking?
Earlier today I sat in Martin’s meeting room; first time there, as an observer and would-be consultant.
“We’ll improve customer satisfaction.” “This year we’ll finally fix internal communication.”
Sounds good.
Not so good when it gets called a “goal” in a monthly meeting.
Martin, an SMB owner, dressed up his wishful thinking and called it a goal.
It works in a presentation. You can close the meeting feeling like something was decided. But it isn’t a goal. It’s a belief. You can hold it, you can even repeat it in every Monday standup, but you’ll never know when you’ve arrived.
What turns an idea into a real goal
In 1981, George T. Doran wrote a short article asking a deceptively simple question: why do organizations struggle so much to follow through on what they set out to do? His answer was equally simple — goals are too vague to act on. He proposed a few conditions a goal must meet. Many years of practice later, I still see it the same way.
A goal needs at least three qualities to be an actual goal — not just a wish.
It’s specific and measurable. Not “we’ll improve performance,” but “every team member hits a minimum of 95 units per month by end of quarter.” If you can’t say when it’s been met, you don’t have a goal.
It has a deadline. Without one, it’s a task that keeps getting pushed to next week. A deadline isn’t bureaucracy — it’s respect for your own decision.
It has a clear owner. Not the team. Not the department. One specific person who wakes up knowing this is their thing. When “the team” is responsible, in practice nobody is.
Why most managers do it differently
Because a concrete goal is uncomfortable.
When I say “everyone at 95 by end of quarter,” I’m holding up a mirror — to myself and to my people. It will be clear who delivered and who didn’t. It will be clear whether I, as a manager, did everything I could to make it possible.
Wishful thinking is safer. Nobody fails when the goal can’t be measured. But nobody wins either.
Tracking isn’t surveillance
If you have a goal, you need to track it. Not because you don’t trust people — but because without tracking, you’re flying blind. And a blind manager doesn’t help anyone; he just waits and hopes.
Tracking isn’t monitoring. It’s interest. It’s a regular conversation: where are you, what’s getting in your way, what do you need. A manager who doesn’t check in can’t understand what his people are going through. And a manager who doesn’t understand can’t help.
The paradox: managers who avoid checking in — afraid of looking like micromanagers — are actually leaving their people alone with problems they could have solved together.
Rewards and consequences
When a goal has a deadline and an owner, the natural question follows: what happens when they hit it? And what if they don’t?
If there’s no consequence — positive or negative — the goal becomes a suggestion. And people don’t follow suggestions when they’re under pressure.
The principle is simple: people behave according to what’s visible, what’s valued, and what has consequences. If hitting a goal has no visible effect — and neither does missing it — why would anyone treat it seriously?
A practical test
Take one goal you recently gave your team. Ask yourself:
- Can I measure precisely when it’s been met?
- Does it have a specific deadline?
- Is there one named person responsible — not a group?
- If someone doesn’t deliver, do I know what I’ll do?
If you can’t answer even one of these, you don’t have a goal. You have a wish.