Setting goals can be tricky when it comes to performance management and in fact, on occasion – depending on your culture – it may even be wise to not set performance goals.

Many startups have this mentality of growth, abundance and never ending opportunities.

But if you layer on performance targets of say “growing 10% this year” suddenly the mindset changes. Often people will push just until the point of achieving the 10% growth. And in that case, more harm is done than good.

So really, consider your culture before deciding if performance goals are needed.