Goal-Setting Frameworks for Hospitality

A previous article on the lack of corporate purpose in hotels has made me reflect on one of the biggest challenges in hotel management today: the lack of clearly defined objectives, or, in many cases, misconceptions about how objectives should be set.

In hotel management, strategy is not merely a plan on paper, but a dynamic process that requires precision, alignment and commitment at every level of the organisation. Yet reality shows us that, far too often, objectives are set at the beginning of the year and then sidelined until the next performance review. The result? Teams disconnected from the overall vision, fragmented strategies and execution that becomes rigid and ineffective. The real challenge is not simply defining objectives, but ensuring they are ambitious, measurable and sufficiently flexible to adapt to a constantly changing environment. In this respect, the evolution from traditional SMART objectives to a more dynamic approach such as FAST objectives —Frequently discussed, Ambitious, Specific and Transparent— offers a new perspective on how to translate strategy into tangible results. Let us look at how this approach can transform the way hotels formulate and manage their goals, enabling them not only to improve individual performance, but also to strengthen coordination and strategic alignment across the entire organisation. To execute strategy, hotel leaders must set ambitious objectives, translate them into specific metrics and milestones, make them transparent throughout the organisation, and discuss progress frequently. This is followed by meetings (sometimes too many...) with the team to set annual targets, review performance against those objectives at year-end, and link the assessment to promotion and bonus decisions. Peter Drucker introduced “management by objectives”, an approach in which employees agreed with their manager on a set of objectives and worked towards achieving them throughout the year. This led to SMART objectives, or smart objectives, with SMART standing for:

• Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
• Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
• Achievable (agreed, attainable).
• Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
• Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

In other words, objectives should be smart by ensuring they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and, of course, time-bound. It is important to have measurable objectives so that you can track your progress and stay motivated. Assessing progress helps you remain focused, achieve them and feel the excitement of getting closer to reaching your goal. Of course, they must also be realistic and achievable in order to succeed. In other words, they should stretch your capabilities while remaining possible. When you set an achievable objective, you may be able to identify opportunities or resources that had previously been overlooked and that can bring you closer to it. The relevance of the objectives proposed is fundamental. It is about ensuring that objectives are important to the hotel and aligned with other relevant objectives. We all need support and assistance to achieve our objectives, but it is important to retain ownership of them. Therefore, we must ensure that plans move everyone forward, while each person remains accountable for achieving their own objectives. A relevant objective can answer “yes” to these questions: