YOUR GOALS ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS YOUR TEAM’S COLLABORATION

Jessica Murray

I had a “coffee” meeting the other day (we were both drinking tea), and the topic of goal setting came up.

Sounds like a December 1 tea chat, right?

The person I was sipping with asked, “What are the common challenges you’ve seen with organizations when it comes to goal setting?”

How much time do you have?

Whether during my time as a manager, functional lead, or the person responsible for integrating frameworks, such as OKRs or EOS’s Rocks, I’ve had a front-row seat to what goes well and where things go sideways during planning cycles.

While I could write a lengthy post about this topic, I’m going to keep this simple and share one crucial reminder:

Make sure stakeholders communicate with one another before solidifying goals.

When teams don’t communicate

No single function or leader should be setting goals in a vacuum. Dependencies and downstream impacts nearly always exist and live horizontally. In the midst of the hustle and shuffle, I’ve observed this key piece gets missed when people are rushed and focused on churning out deliverables for their team.

What transpires as a result?

• Misaligned and unrealistic targets.

• Duplicated efforts.

• Poorly outlined timelines.

• Surprise trade-offs mid-quarter.

• Burnt time and cycles.

For example:

• Sales commits to a pipeline target that assumes new marketing campaigns and product promises that don’t exist yet.

• Product publishes a launch plan that requires Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success support. It also doesn’t take into account the Engineering team’s capacity required to maintain the existing product and manage tech debt.

• Functions create headcount targets without involving People Ops on bandwidth and lead times.

As the above makes clear, if your planning cycle doesn’t build in slack or encourage these conversations upfront, you’ll burn time later.

How to work smarter through planning cycles

So, how can you avoid this pitfall?

• Clear communication from the top: Leaders must understand the strategy first so they can help architect the company’s objectives. It also must be clear that individual leaders own both their function’s goals and the cross-functional alignment required to achieve them.

• Build in enough time: Set the 3-5 company objectives first to establish overall focus. Then, make sure you’ve created an appropriate window between that reveal and the deadline for finalized functional goals. That time should be used for leaders to reflect on their department AND engage in structured conversations with cross-functional peers.

• Schedule a review: Each planning cycle, set a leader readout meeting. Ask probing questions and call on other leaders to reaffirm that dependencies have been addressed. In other words, do a final check to get the kinks out before setting these in stone and cascading across the team.

This approach requires forward thinking and a steady operating rhythm. The payoff:

• More alignment.

• Increased focus.

• Fewer hurdles to execution.

• Shared understanding.

• Fewer fire drills.

And this applies to teams large and small.

Your December sanity check

Given we’re in December, you’re likely in the “refinement” stage of 2026 goal-setting. Before everything’s set in stone, do the sanity check:

• Are functional goals aligned with the company objectives?

• Do the set goals reflect dependencies appropriately, or can you see gaps?

• Do the goals reflect the team’s capacity and budget?

• Are you able to effectively track success metrics?

• Do all the goals pass the SMART test?

Your goals will only be as strong as your team’s collaboration. Make that an early step in the process, not an afterthought.