Five Reasons Setting Goals with Deadlines May Not Be Right For You

As with my last post, Six Reasons Not To Hire A PR Firm sometimes it is better to understand the reasons NOT to do something rather than doing it.

For this week, here are my top five reasons to NOT set goals with deadlines:

If You Don’t Want to Hold Yourself Accountable

I have been speaking to a number of CEOs lately that are living in a fantasy world. These CEOs want the end result (e.g. sell the business for “a lot of money”, working on the business instead of being in the business, so they have plenty of time off to spend with their family) without accepting they need to hold themselves accountable for making it happen. Just having a vague goal of growing revenue or selling your business in the next couple of years will not happen unless you are specific, and you know and act on ALL the interim actions and milestones that you don’t really want. This will help you to get the future that you do want.

“He’s not talking about me, is he?”

Yes I am.

If Your Team Can’t Take Losing

Other CEOs tell me they are fine holding themselves accountable, but they get stuck on setting goals with deadlines for the staff. “What happens if we don’t make the goal? Failure can be so demoralizing for my team?” I speculate these owners and their employees never played competitive sports and don’t want their children to compete as well.  After all, they might lose.

Each week, there are millions of people competing in an activity of skill with deadlines where there are winners and losers –  sports matches, job/school applicants, and sales people seeking to hit their monthly quota are just three obvious examples. To win you have to accept losing.  And guess what, you can play again next month or next quarter or next year. Don’t set goals that are too easy.  For the best of us, it is much more fun to be challenged to the utmost and win (or even lose) than to beat an easy opponent or obtain an easy goal.

If Your Team is Mediocre

What happens if we don’t make our goal by the appointed deadline? Get over it!

The best companies in the world all have specific goals that matter to them: revenue, subscribers, customer service levels, new product introductions. And these goals each have a specific timeframe to for completion. 

Guess what? They fail all the time. 

Every single quarter the top firms in every space from technology (Google, Microsoft, Apple) to Wall Street (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America) to industry (GE, Toyota, Wal-Mart) set aggressive goals with tight deadlines that they miss.  

What’s important is that they set tough, yet what they believe are achievable goals with deadlines to push themselves to be the best they can be. Why? Because they are playing the game to win against equally ambitious opponents. If you don’t think your team is up for it, I speculate you are right. 

If You Have Nothing Important to Accomplish in Your Business

If you can’t think of anything important to accomplish in your business, you’re off the hook.

For those of you that are seeking to design a future for your business that is worthy of the original intent of why you started your business, and all the resources (e.g. time, passion, energy, etc.) you have thrown into your business since its inception.

Setting goals with deadlines clarifies what is important for your business to accomplish. It will also automatically create interim goals with deadlines that you don’t necessarily want (hiring more sales people, improving your marketing, taking on a bigger lease, etc.) to accomplish the important goals you do want to accomplish.

If You’re Too Busy Just Trying to Stay in Business

Surprisingly, I hear this one the most. “I don’t have time to set goals let alone deadlines; I am doing all I can to pay my bills to keep the business going.” All I can say is if you are constantly in survival mode, what is going to change one year, three years, or five years from now? Is that why you decided to run your own business? To survive?