Breaking ambitious goals down into manageable targets

Medium effort

Medium impact

Knowing how to set ambitious but realistic goals is a common challenge for business leaders. Overly ambitious goals can affect morale and derail strategies, while flat goals can lead to a decline in motivation. Investing time in your goal-setting process and regularly monitoring progress allows for better forecasting and more informed decisions.

We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline

What's involved? Ways to use this action plan Measuring impact

Define your main company goals and then communicate them to employees so that everyone is ultimately working towards the same vision

Impact: medium

Why will this help?

Your overarching business goals set a framework for ambitions and expectations, and give employees context for their own targets.

Divide your wider company goals into long-term (they will take more than a year to achieve) and short-term (they can be achieved within a year) goals

Impact: medium

Why will this help?

Separating out your goals will balance ambition with realistic targets: long-term goals can be ambitious and relate to your ultimate company vision, while short-term goals will be more realistic.

Prioritise which goals you’re going to work on first, making a note of why they’re most important and checking they meet the SMART methodology

Impact: high

Why will this help?

Prioritising goals will give you focus and ensure you aren’t chasing too many things at once. Running your chosen goals through the SMART methodology is a useful way to sense check what’s needed to achieve them.

Using the SMART methodology to set goals

Use our SMART goal-setting template to make each goal specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Work with managers to break company goals down into smaller targets, assigning several short-term goals and at least one long-term goal to each department

Impact: high

Why will this help?

Setting short-term goals that departments can achieve within the year will help with motivation, while long-term goals give them a more ambitious vision to work towards.

Regularly monitor the progress of company, team and individual goals in one-to-one meetings and appraisals

Impact: high

Why will this help?

Checking in on progress every month keeps leaders and employees focused on their targets and maintains momentum.

Conducting one-to-ones with employees

Using a template for employee one-to-ones, like this one from Bristol University, will help to make sure each meeting is as effective as possible.

What can I do with this Action Plan?

Start this Action Plan

Add some extra information to this plan and we’ll help you get it done.

We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline

Download and print

Get a printable template for this Action Plan, fill it in with some target dates, and share it with your team. Pin it on the wall where everyone can see it.

Get the printable Action Plan

Learning Groups

We also run Learning Groups on these topics where you can join other leaders tackling the same challenges.

Find a Learning Group

How will I know if my action plan is working?

Goals matrix created

Record a summary of the company’s goals and whether you're on track

Why this metric?

Creating a matrix that includes goals and targets set across the business gives you an overall picture of what is on track and what needs more attention.

How do I start tracking?

Use a simple spreadsheet with a colour-coded traffic light system or a specialist project management programme if you require a more sophisticated monitoring tool.