Setting Cultural Goals: What Entrepreneurs Need to Know

Author: Ryan McCarty

Running a business is more than just registering for an LLC and building a team. Whether you’re new to the game or have been in your industry for years, it’s always important to see the bigger picture of what you’re creating and set cultural goals that put you on another level. Although there are many different business owners, setting cultural goals is a universal benefit and can elevate your passion to new heights and opportunities in the future.

For any entrepreneur, setting cultural goals will set you apart from the rest, and in the end, you’ll be happy you took the steps to focus on the trajectory of your company and create a culture that supports that growth.

Keep Your Focus

When you aren't intentional with your culture, it’s easy to fall into the trap of building your business without a plan or mission. This is often how many businesses fail because they aren’t focused on growing their culture as the business grows. When you set goals and make commitments to them, there’s a path you agree to take, and it’s much easier to weed out time-consuming tasks that matter less.

It becomes natural to turn away actions that aren’t aligned with the plan. Creating a strategic plan means determining the daily activities that will help you achieve them. With persistence and precision, staying focused on the mission is essential for making your brand soar. Focus on the mission, show up, and make the sacrifice to make it happen.

Measure Progress

Once you have determined a plan, and goals have been set, the real work can begin. In creating this plan, you’ll be able to see the progress you’ve made and get a better sense of what it’s going to take to achieve your ultimate goal. While keeping your eye on the bigger picture (I like to think of this as keeping an eye on the image on the outside of a puzzle box), measuring your progress provides a great foundation to be able to organize what comes next. Depending on your goal, measuring progress can be done daily, weekly, or monthly, but it’s crucial in your journey toward realizing the workplace culture you hope to achieve.

When you are intentional with each goal, you can look at the progress you’ve made and celebrate small wins with your team.

It's important to keep taking a look at how far you’ve come from when you first began as this helps to remind you of what made you special when you first started. Each step your team takes together brings you much closer to your goals and gives you a chance to gear up for the next move.

Increase Motivation

When you’re running a marathon, it can be hard to stay focused and motivated on the initial vision that started your journey. When I signed up to run a half-marathon, I didn’t fully appreciate the amount of training required to be prepared. On the day of the marathon, however, the pain and tiredness were overcome with a reminder that the friend I was running for was waiting for me at the finish line. Tying your cultural goals to a greater purpose can also be a way to motivate yourself to get to the next level. Especially if it’s something that you know will positively impact your business, you will begin to feel a sense of why you do what you do.

Although it may not feel like it currently, everything you do works towards a bigger mission. As you measure progress and see how far your company culture has come, you are motivated to continue pushing forward and keep the momentum going. Knowing your and your company's why will be a huge motivator and give you the spark you need to keep going.

Rediscover Your Passion

Setting cultural goals for a bigger outcome can be a long and challenging journey. However, it allows you to reconnect with your why, rediscover your passion for the work, and remind you of what you started in the first place. Setting practical, achievable cultural goals at any age of your business can help realign you to your brand and re-inspire your team's purpose for what you are working toward.

Knowing that you are on your way to making a difference for your business is an incredible feeling and brings you back to the memories of when you first began. Those butterflies of uncertainty can create a wave of emotions, but overall, you were able to turn your passion into a purpose and set cultural goals for further achievement. You are essentially recommitting to your journey and diving deeper into your passion.

Stay Relevant

What many fail to realize is that building an engaging, purposeful culture is more than just checking something off your list of to-do’s or accomplishments. It’s a way of combing through your business and making strategic decisions about how you can be successful for long-term sustainability. When you set cultural goals, your mind automatically has to go into the future of where your brand can be. In thinking in that mind frame, it’s crucial to make cultural goals that will allow you to stay relevant.

The act of setting goals forces you to contemplate what will work for your brand and how you can sustain the benefits of your decision.

When making them, the priority can’t always be based on what you think will work. It should stand on a strong foundation of what you know will be applicable and necessary to do in the future. Some research will need to be involved in setting these goals, but as your business evolves, you will feel confident that it will thrive as a result of your commitment to championing a culture that engages all stakeholders with purpose.

Keep Showing Up

When you and your team make commitments to building your culture and reach it, you will feel a shared sense of pride. After many possible setbacks and hard days, you are able to say you’ve successfully completed a goal set for the team. Naturally, you want to create that feeling again. It’s empowering to you and your team to contribute toward positive change. With that feeling still lingering in your veins, you’re tempted to go back to the drawing board and see what other cultural goals you’re able to knock off your list.

It’s the cycle of experiencing significant breakthroughs and taking note of how you got there. For some, your team may want to take a short break and revisit their next set of cultural goals, but for many, they don’t want their momentum of success to end and immediately brainstorm more plans for their next stage of ideas. Empowering all stakeholders to work toward meeting cultural goals can help you achieve way more than you ever thought possible, and it’s the start of something truly groundbreaking for many brands.

Lastly

Don’t fall victim to a vague plan that leads you into the dark with your business. Set aside some time to brainstorm and organize your ideas into practical cultural goals that you can plan to achieve. Stick with them and carve out a clear path that will get you there. It’s always okay to alter them as you see fit but make it your priority to do whatever it takes to set your brand up for success.

Learn more about our two-day culture training for leaders here.