In all the years I've coached leadership teams, there are 7 common mistakes I see when they set their quarterly objectives.

When these are in play, it makes progress toward their goals so much harder.

Here they are: 

1. Setting too many objectives. Destroys the purpose to create focused energy.
2. Failing to push for significant improvement for fear that people are already overwhelmed. 
3. Not creating a plan for how the objective will be achieved. Creates ambiguity.
4. Not assigning clear accountability to one person for each objective. If we're all accountable, no one is.
5. Signaling a spoken or unspoken, "if you possibly can." Doesn't establish expectations.
6. Accepting reverse objectives. This sounds like, "Yeah I can get that done, if you can do X first."
7. Changing objectives before they're accomplished. 

Check your objectives for the quarter against this list. Is there a common mistake your team tends to make? 

—benj