In our life, we all have a distinct goal that we want to achieve. But some of them mix it up with objective and go into a debate of goal vs objective. This article will define both objectives and goals.
Goal vs Objective – The Difference
Many terms are thrown at us in our daily lives that seem to have interchangeable meanings. But if we view them sincerely, the meanings are different and can impact our lives as well. The exact process goes for the debate of goal vs objective. Instead of confusing ourselves, we should study them separately to know the primary meaning.
Meaning
Word goal is a term to define the purpose of our life on a more extensive spectrum. Rather than setting up all the plans, it is a point where we want to reach somewhere in our life.
Goal – Business Context
If we talk about the term goal from a business perspective, it will be easier to understand the term. A goal is an ambition and overall intention of running a business. It is not an easy step to measure the success rate of getting to a goal. If we can describe it an easy way, we can say the goal is the primary outcome a company wants at the end of a specific period.
Without setting up a goal, you cannot provide a direction to your company. It helps you set up a mission statement, strategies, and culture for the company. Goal acts as a motivational factor for both the individuals and the company. If a company keeps defining short-term goals, it can help maintain high morale amongst the employees.
Objective – Meaning
So far, we were able to learn about the word goal and its meaning. Once a goal is set in our life, we set up a list of tasks to achieve our goal. Those tasks are known as objective. An objective usually has a short time frame, and we can measure the rate of an objective’s success.
Objective – Business Context
From the perspective of a business, we can say that objectives are regular tasks that a manager assigns to achieve company goals. The best thing about the objective is the accountability factor. A manager can quickly check the performance of the employee to measure the status of the objective.
In a large work environment, an objective helps the manager to distribute the work among the workers. In this way, the whole team can work together to get things done in the company. Mainly, a manager divides the employees into many teams to assign them a single objective.
Goal vs Objective – Mutual Relationship
It is clear from the basic meaning and details that the debate goal vs objective is due to a lack of information. These two have a strong relationship with each other. Without any of those, you cannot achieve the purpose of the other term. If your company sets up a long-term goal that you are looking to achieve in a year, you will need to develop many objectives to make the goal possible.
But, without setting up objectives, a goal will be impossible to achieve and will be just a fancy word. In the same way, the objective also does not have any use without having a broader goal in mind.
Most of the successful companies around the world are working so that both the goal and objective have a mutual relationship. Large companies in the world have many goals for their future. Businesses set up many objectives for each goal, and these objectives are divided into teams.
Process
There are many processes to fuse these terms, so goal vs objective is not a competition anymore. But most companies around the world follow the SMART method. That’s an acronym defining many parts of the whole procedure. If you are coming up with a long-term goal, it would feel impossible in the early stages to achieve the goal. But, when you divide the goal into many parts and distribute the work, it will be in your grasp in no time.
SMART Method
Specific: It means to assign a particular objective to an employee so the objective can be complete easily. You can ask a member of the team to send emails to the customers. While the other member of the team can respond to incoming calls at the customer care number. Further, another employee can come up with creative articles for your site.
Measurable: The objective that you assign to an employee should be measurable. For example, writing an article of 10 pages is a measurable objective.
Attainable: The objective of a particular group should be within reach and achievable. You can ask a team member to review your work before posting it online.
Relevant: All the effort that your team puts in to achieve an objective should be relevant. An effort on irrelevant tasks is a wasted effort and results in a loss.
Timely: The phrase time is money describes this part of the SMART method. All the objectives
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