Goal setting isn’t strategy, because bigger targets don’t tell your team where to play, how to win, or what to stop—so effort spreads thin and execution drifts. In this article, Jef Menguin explains the three decisions leaders must make before they write a single metric. Apply it, then pass it to your team so meetings end with choices, not pressure.
When strategy is missing, activity becomes the substitute.
At 9:03 AM, the room is still polite.
Marvin, the CEO, is standing at the front of the conference room with his laptop open. Liza, the HR Head, is sitting near the window, pen ready, face calm but already bracing for what she knows is coming.
Someone says, “Okay. Let’s beat last year.”
And like clockwork, the numbers appear. Bigger targets. Higher quotas. More activities. More everything.
It looks like strategy. It feels like progress.
But it isn’t.
It’s goal setting wearing a strategy costume.
Why I’m writing this
I’ve seen “strategic planning” turn into a goal-setting contest in too many companies. I’ve also seen strategic planning facilitators explain strategy as a list of activity targets: number of leads, number of calls, number of deals closed, number of emails, number of replies, number of posts.
That teaching is not harmless. It trains leaders to confuse busyness with direction.
And it trains teams to chase motion instead of impact.
This must stop.
What goal setting really is
Goal setting answers one question: What do we want?
It’s a number you aim for. A target you point to. A finish line you want to cross.
“20% growth.” “Hire 30 people.” “5,000 leads.”
Goals are not wrong. In fact, goals can be useful.
But goals do not tell your team how to win.
A goal is a destination. It is not a map.
What strategy really is
Strategy answers a different question: How will we win?
It is a set of choices that creates focus.
Strategy is not “do more.” Strategy is “choose better.”
You choose where to play. You choose how to win. You choose what to stop doing so your best effort goes to the right things.
If goal setting is the “where,” strategy is the “how.”
And most teams skip the “how,” because it forces trade-offs.
The vacuum that goals create
When Marvin says, “We need 30% growth,” he creates a vacuum.
Everyone wants to fill it quickly. Nobody wants to sit in uncertainty. So the team reaches for what they can control: activity.
Jomar, the Sales Director, says, “Let’s increase calls.” Mina, the Marketing Manager, says, “Let’s post daily and run more webinars.” Someone else says, “We should add email sequences.”
On paper, it looks busy and bold. In real life, it often becomes noise.
A goal without choices is like telling people, “Swim faster,” without saying which shore to swim to.
A story: Jomar’s team hit the quotas and still lost
Jomar was proud. He should have been.
His sales team hit their activity targets: calls made, emails sent, follow-ups done. He had dashboards that looked clean. Numbers that moved every week.
But revenue didn’t move.
One afternoon, Jomar told Liza, “Hindi ko gets. We’re doing everything.”
Liza didn’t argue. She just looked tired. Not angry. Tired. The kind of tired that comes from watching good people push hard in the wrong direction.
The problem wasn’t effort.
The problem was aim.
Jomar’s team was selling to “anyone who might buy.” They were chasing every industry, every customer type, every deal size.
They were knocking on every door.
And most doors were the wrong doors.
Speedometer vs map
Those activity numbers—leads, calls, posts, emails—are like a speedometer.
A speedometer can tell you that you’re moving fast.
But it cannot tell you if you’re heading the right way.
Strategy is the map.
Without a map, speed becomes a trap. You don’t just get lost. You get lost faster.
Why leaders think strategic planning is easy
This is where the dangerous belief shows up.
Some leaders think strategic planning is easy because it sounds like this:
“Let’s get better numbers than last year.” “Let’s stretch our targets.” “Let’s make our KPIs more aggressive.”
That’s not strategy. That’s escalation.
Escalation is easy because it doesn’t require choice. It doesn’t require sacrifice. It doesn’t require stopping.
But strategy requires the sentence most leaders avoid:
“We will not do that this year.”
The three decisions leaders must make before targets
If you want real strategy, decide these before you write a single KPI.
Decide #1: Who are we really serving?
Not “everyone.” Not “anyone with budget.”
Choose a clear customer group you want to win with.
Marvin’s company, for example, could choose: “Mid-sized firms that need leadership training implemented fast.”
That choice instantly creates focus.
Decide #2: How will we win with them?
Pick your edge. One primary advantage.
Speed? Simplicity? Trust? Price? Expertise?
If you try to win on everything, you end up winning on nothing.
Decide #3: What will we stop doing?
This is the real one. The painful one. The strategic one.
Stop chasing low-fit customers. Stop offering custom work that slows delivery. Stop doing activities that look good but don’t create buyers.
If you can’t answer “what will we stop,” you don’t have strategy yet.
You have a wish list.
What this means for CEOs
Marvin’s job is not to demand more activity.
His job is to make clear choices so his people can focus their effort.
When CEOs confuse strategy with goal setting, they lead by pressure. They unintentionally build cultures where people feel they must always do more to prove value.
That creates compliance, not ownership.
And compliance is expensive.
What this means for HR Heads
Liza carries what the dashboards don’t show.
When strategy is unclear, people get measured by busyness. The system rewards output without direction. HR ends up dealing with fatigue, frustration, and quiet quitting that leaders mistake for “lack of motivation.”
But people don’t quit because the goals are big.
People quit because the work feels pointless.
HR Heads don’t just protect people. They protect the system from becoming a machine that breaks the people.
A simple rule for your next planning session
Try this rule and watch how uncomfortable—and useful—it becomes:
No targets until choices are clear.
Ban the activity words for the first hour: leads, calls, deals, posts, emails, replies.
Not because they don’t matter.
Because they are second.
First, decide the map.
Then you can measure the speed.
A 24-hour challenge
Open your strategic plan deck.
Find the first slide where the goals and metrics begin.
Insert one slide before it. Title it:
Our Choices
Then write three lines:
We will focus on: ______ We will win by: ______ We will stop: ______
If you can’t fill those out, don’t raise the targets yet.
Because when strategy is missing, activity becomes the substitute.
And your people will feel it long before your numbers show it.
