Objectives or Goals

While people often use "goals," "objectives," or even "targets" interchangeably, especially in casual conversation, there are distinct differences in their semantics within the context of Organizational Development (OD). The concepts work together in a hierarchical way and serve different purposes.

We often refer to "objectives" and "goals" interchangeably in our articles at GRI, meaning the two together: broad, long-term statements with their set of actions that lead to them. See here on this article about performance by objectives.

Goals

A goal is a broad, long-term, and overarching statement that describes an organization's desired future state or outcome. Goals provide direction and purpose, aligning the entire organization toward a shared vision. They are often qualitative and can be less specific than objectives. On a roadmap, a goal is the destination.

Example: "Improve employee engagement across the company." or "Become the market leader in your industry."

Objectives

An objective is a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) action or a set of actions that help an organization achieve its broader goals. Objectives are the tangible, concrete steps that break down a goal into manageable pieces. In technical terms, they are the "how" you get to the "what," often with the affective and emotional components of how people behave being put aside.

Example: For the goal "Improve employee engagement across the company," an objective might be: "Implement a new employee feedback system by the end of the third quarter to increase the company's internal satisfaction score by 20%."

Targets

A target is the quantitative benchmark or numerical value within an objective that you aim to hit. It's the "how much" or "how many" part of the objective. Targets make an objective truly measurable.

Example: To achieve the objective of "Increasing the market share in the Western region by the end of Q4," a target would be: "Increase market share by 5%."

Comparisons

	Goals	Objectives	Targets
Scope	Broad and general	Specific and actionable	Precise and quantitative
Purpose	Provides a vision and direction for the long term	Defines the specific actions and outcomes needed to reach a goal	Provides the measurable benchmark for an objective
Timeframe	Long-term (often 1-5 years or more)	Short- to mid-term (weeks to months)	Often a deadline or a specific point in time
Measurability	Qualitative and difficult to measure directly (e.g., "becoming a market leader")	Quantitative and measurable (e.g., "increase market share")	A concrete, numerical value (e.g., "by 5%")
Nature	The "what" you want to achieve	The set of actions to achieve it	The "how much" or "how many"
Example	"Improve employee satisfaction"	"Implement a new feedback system to increase satisfaction scores"	"Increase the satisfaction score by 15% by the end of Q4"