Measuring Success in Business: The Significance of Setting Goals

How can a business judge success? How do employees know if their efforts are really making a difference, or are they just a warm body taking up space? By setting measurable goals a company will have a better idea of where they stand and employees will have a better understanding of how their contributions count. As the self-help author Brian Tracy (2001) said, “If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.”

Setting goals requires understanding where one is, where one wants to be, and a course on how to get there. As stated in the text, when drafting goals, they should be “realistic and attainable,” “improve the organization,” everyone should have a voice in the “goal-setting process,” and “a program should be developed to achieve each goal.” (Clark, 1997) While listing lofty goals may make one feel good, if said goal has no quantitative way form of measurement, and cannot be realistically attained, the goal will never be reached. Unrealistic and immeasurable goals will not produce results. Instead, one will become mired down...