Set Formal Goals to Effectively Manage Your Organization

Setting formal goals is an important first step in the process of setting yourself up for success. Without a structured plan of action, you're like a ship without nautical compasses, traveling aimlessly about the sea. To succeed, you need to chart your course and take definite steps to get there. And without clear-cut goals, how can you ever know where you are going?


Formal goals provide you with a framework for measuring your progress toward your ultimate goals. They help you keep focused and motivated. But they also serve as a touchstone for evaluating your own efforts. If you've set some goals and failed to meet them, you will want to know why and how you didn't meet them. By reviewing your goals over time, you'll be able to pinpoint problems or imbalances that prevent you from reaching your goals, even though your plans or projects may have been in place for some time.

One reason why it's important to set formal goals is that they can be measured. That makes them easier to accomplish. When you measure your progress against some standard, you will be able to see immediately whether you are on track, and if you need to make adjustments along the way. That's a vital step toward ensuring that you actually do meet your goals. No one wants to set goals that are too extensive or difficult to achieve.

Yet another advantage of having set formal goals is they give you a sense of control. A major obstacle to achieving your goals is not only inertia; it's also failure to acknowledge that the problem lies within your plan and your processes, rather than some external source. Once you recognize that your plan needs work, you can control the process to ensure that it gets done right. That gives you a powerful sense of purpose and direction.

One thing to keep in mind when you set formal goals is that they may need to be adjusted. That's true for any formal plan; there are times when they will need to be adjusted to fit circumstances that arise. In addition, the time to develop these formal goals may come at a point in your career where it seems that the objectives are no longer relevant. For example, if you have been employed for several years, and the pay has become insufficient to keep you afloat, now might be a good time to discuss these formal goals with your supervisor. You can also consult them about your career goals should a change occur.

In addition to needing to adjust them as circumstances alter, you also need to address them in order to meet your objectives. That's because sometimes a formal goal is not aligned with the real needs of the situation. For example, if you have a career goal that involves a specific number of years of experience as a teacher, you probably don't want to think about retirement at this point in time. Yet this goal may be inappropriate in today's economy. Therefore, you need to make adjustments to your goals to take into account current conditions.

Of course, if circumstances alter so drastically that your original goals no longer apply, you need to revisit them. That's why it's important to track progress as you make adjustments. Consider creating charts showing how your objectives have changed. That will allow you to track changes to your plan as they occur. It's also a good idea to go back to your goals periodically to see if they still make sense. Are they still relevant in this environment?


In many cases, your supervisors will provide you with a lot of guidance when you set formal goals. However, you still need to make sure that they understand their role. In particular, if your plan calls for supervisors to evaluate them, don't assume they know what the plan is for you. It will help you to ensure your success if you discuss these matters with your supervisors regularly. They may decide that their role is unrelated to this task.