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Recently, I was asking a team for their feedback on the goals and objectives for an approaching  meeting and one team member emailed me, “I always get confused by the differences between goals and objectives but here is what I want out of the meeting.”  As I read these words I had one of those fleeting thoughts of “If I only had a nickel for every time I have heard that comment, I’d be rich.” Many teams don’t get hung up on the distinction between goals and objectives and meetings seem to work for them.  Again, depending on the meeting, some folks can get away with blurring outcomes.  However, at other times failing to keep a team focused on goals and objectives as distinct outcomes can be disastrous.  I once was on a committee where paid facilitators failed to make the distinction between goals and objectives in a process where such distinguishing was important, strategic and vital to the outcomes   In this particular case, the  failure to recognize the difference between goals and objectives truncated the vision of the team, caused confusion, and resulted in delays as the team lurched towards the end point without clear guidance.  Let me underscore my belief.  One of the critical roles of a process facilitator is to help teams clarify the differences between goals and objectives and manage the process in a way that ensures that the team seamlessly navigates between the two.  Clarifying goals and objectives is a critical systems thinking competency.

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A quick Google search will yield dozens of websites detailing the difference between writing goals and objectives and many offer tools and frameworks (like logic models) to help define and operationalize the two concepts as they work in tandem. However, as a way to think informally about goals and objectives, I would like to offer the following working definitions that have served me well over the years.

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A Goal is the expression of the desire of your team, company, or nonprofit to change the world. Goals are about going far enough upstream to create performance improvement or change that matters.

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An Objective is the work that is in front of you to help you achieve your goal.  Connect the dots between objectives and you start making progress towards your goal.

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Let me give you an example of how these two ideas work in real life.  One of the principles of my consulting practice is to purchase locally and make purchasing decisions that have the lowest environmental impact.   As most new businesses, I needed to go through the process of developing the basic identity tools such as letterhead, business cards and other print products.  The obvious choice was to print on recycled paper (looking for a high post consumer waste content in the recycled material) and preferably print using non-petroleum based ink.  As I sought out a local printer I ended up talking to a couple of printing companies who said that they could accommodate the use of recycled papers and choice of inks.  Then I encountered a printer who stopped my in my tracks when he said, “when you ask about recycled paper you are asking the wrong question.” He then proceeded to walk me through the printing workflow from — prepress — to plating — to production and equipment maintenance — and ended up with recycling practices.   His bottom line was that choosing recycled paper is a great symbolic act on the part of the consumer but that in reality printing was an energy intensive process that involves many toxic chemicals, paper waste and often inefficient equipment, all of which are costs hidden to the consumer.  He then detailed the massive re-engineering that he has taken his company through in order to dramatically decrease their environmental impact not only in terms of saving trees but also in terms decreasing the toxic waste stream, decreasing energy consumption and increasing the health and safety of the work environment.  He then said, “your objective might be to purchase recycled business cards but our goal is to save the planet.”  In short, not all recycling symbols are created equal and if I get stuck on the objective, I may fail to recognize the goal.

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This story brings me back to questions I have asked my clients to clarify goals as distinct from objectives.  Do you really want to write a job description or do you really need to rethink your entire job classification system?  Do you need to write a grant or do you really need to rethink your resource development plan? Do you really need someone to facilitate a meeting or do you need to rethink the performance capacity of your team?  In other words, are you going far enough upstream to make a difference?

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Keeping goals and objectives clear, distinct and separate, helps us be clear that our present activities always keep the larger “world changing” goal in context. Without a systems view, I would be carrying business cards that my not represent any practical meaning in terms of environmental responsibility.  In the same way a community-nonprofit or government agency that is content counting social services provided to some client base fails if it is not also working on the larger goal of changing the social and geopolitical context that creates the need for their service in the first place. So goals and objectives matter?  Only if you want to change the world.

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