{"id":51511,"date":"2021-11-15T03:35:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T07:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=51511"},"modified":"2025-09-03T15:54:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T19:54:40","slug":"intermediate-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/intermediate-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Intermediate Goals: Milestones of Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Do you set intermediate goals as benchmarks toward your major goals? What difference can they make?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <em>Scaling Up<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/verne-harnish\/\">Verne Harnish<\/a> argues that setting and reaching intermediate goals contributes to team buy-in and the ultimate achievement of your vision. They also give you a chance to learn what&#8217;s working and what isn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more to learn about intermediate goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><em>Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/hub\/professional\/success-guide\/\">Shortform\u2019s guide to success<\/a>. If you like what you read here, there\u2019s plenty more to check out in the guide!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-setting-intermediate-goals\">Setting Intermediate Goals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Harnish writes that you need to set smaller, intermediate goals on the path to larger goals toward the fulfillment of the vision. <\/strong>Since your main goal is likely a multi-year effort, your intermediate goals should be broken up into monthly, quarterly, and yearly benchmarks. This is crucial to successful implementation because these intermediate goals\u2014and the public celebration of them when they\u2019re met or exceeded\u2014helps secure buy-in and align the entire company with the vision. When people see genuine progress being made, it makes it far easier for them to get on board with the vision and see their individual roles and responsibilities as part of a company-wide strategy to make that vision a reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Intermediate goals can also be important learning opportunities. If you miss an intermediate goal, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that your strategy is doomed. Instead of reacting hastily and pulling the plug on the entire scaling-up plan (as far too many companies do), Harnish advises that you take a breath and try to figure out what happened. Often, it\u2019s just a matter of reallocating resources and fine-tuning some processes to get the outcome you want. Indeed, there\u2019s usually a productive lesson to be learned and applied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indeed.com\/career-advice\/career-development\/business-goals\">You can break the intermediate goals down even further into actionable business objectives<\/a>. These are the specific steps that people in your company must take to achieve an intermediate goal. Thus, if one of your short-term goals is to add five new people to the sales staff by the end of the quarter, actionable business objectives might include posting the jobs to Indeed, screening candidates, and scheduling interviews by the end of the month. All actionable business objectives should be assigned to a specific person and have specific, targeted deadlines.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you set intermediate goals as benchmarks toward your major goals? What difference can they make? In Scaling Up, Verne Harnish argues that setting and reaching intermediate goals contributes to team buy-in and the ultimate achievement of your vision. They also give you a chance to learn what&#8217;s working and what isn&#8217;t. Read more to learn about intermediate goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":51514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,79,14],"tags":[515],"class_list":["post-51511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-entrepreneurship","category-management","tag-scaling-up","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Intermediate Goals: Milestones of Success - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Business growth expert Verne Harnish strongly recommends setting intermediate goals on the way to your vision. Here is why.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/intermediate-goals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Intermediate Goals: Milestones of Success\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Business growth expert Verne Harnish strongly recommends setting intermediate goals on the way to your vision. 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