Like every living being, businesses are born, grow, mature and die. Businesses too are born at the idea stage, live through these phases and complete their lifespan. Of course, with various interventions it is possible for them to experience transitional phases between these steps. But broadly speaking, it must not be forgotten that every business has a certain lifespan. The main aim should therefore be to carry out the activities that will grow the business, bring it to the maturity level and do the work needed for it to stay there.

In this period, when new ventures have increased considerably compared to past years, businesses need to continue their activities with solid steps in order to hold on in the sector and progress successfully.

Newly founded businesses striving to grow generally act without thinking much about the future, absorbed in the intense effort of putting their business ideas into practice correctly. Although this intense effort brings gains in the short term, it negatively affects positioning in the market in the long term. From the founding stage onwards, businesses need to move tirelessly toward the results they want to reach.

To move toward the desired results, it is important that all of the business's employees achieve common goals in line with shared values. Strategic goals are used as an effective method for keeping all employees, together with the business's management, united around a common purpose.

"If you don't know where you want to go, it doesn't matter which road you take."

Correctly defining the point you want to reach in the long term is generally not enough for success. All employees in the business should have the same goals in mind for reaching that point and make a common effort to achieve them.

Goals should serve a specific purpose, be measurable and trackable and — most importantly — be challenging and radical for the business. Management and employees should be convinced that the goal is not impossible, and also be sure that it is not easily achievable.

Along with setting measurable, trackable and challenging goals, key performance indicators should be assigned to monitor the achievement of these goals. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set out the success targets for the steps required to achieve the goal.

So who will achieve these goals, and how?

That is the important point. The biggest supporter in achieving strategic goals is the business's management — and those who achieve the goals are the employees themselves.

Top management should start by ensuring that the "mission" statement — the business's reason for existence — and the "vision" statement — showing the final point to be reached — are embraced by the business's employees. What the business was fundamentally founded for, which activities it carries out and where it wants to go should be conveyed clearly to employees.

Strategic goals set to be achieved by employees persuade them — one of the business's most important resources — to do good things for the business. In this framework, the mission and vision should also be used as an important motivator in that persuasion. Strategic goals should be set in a way that carries the business one step further, beyond routine work.

"If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster."

For goals to be achieved successfully, it is important to track them together with their KPIs and monitor them continuously. Setting goals that fit the business's core purpose, strategy, mission and vision is of great importance for correctly defining the desired destination. Otherwise, wrongly set goals will divert the business away from the desired point. This will lead to the misdirection of the business's resources and the waste of time, labor and capital.

KPIs, used to track whether each goal has been achieved, can be expressed in units of ratio, number or quantity. A goal may have more than one indicator. KPIs give us clues as to how realistic the goal is.

Goals should be reviewed regularly at certain periods of the year. What matters in these review meetings is to ask — before the question "how is the success of the goals going?" — the questions "are we tracking the right indicators for this goal?" and "is this goal we set to carry our business forward the right goal?". Goals must be set correctly for the business's future. Goals are not "untouchable" elements for the business. Goals thought valid at the start may lose their function over time. In that case, goals should be revised or removed. In this way, the business will escape the "sunk cost fallacy".

From their founding until they reach maturity, businesses should use strategic goals as an important tool for growing in a planned way and reaching the strategic position they have set. For businesses to survive, it is important that these goals are continuously reviewed against current dynamics and tracked through indicators. Especially for small-scale businesses and entrepreneurs new to the sector, strategic planning, strategic goals and key performance indicators will light the way they want to travel.

Author: Seda Caner