I worked for a number of companies before cofounding MyFitnessPal. None of them used formal goal-setting systems. They had annual financial plans, revenue numbers to hit, and broad strategies around them, but nothing structured or continuous. Not coincidentally, those organizations shared something else in common: a glaring lack of alignment. I’d have no clue as to what other teams were doing, or how we might work together toward a common objective. We’d try to compensate with more meetings, which only wasted time. If you put two people in a boat and have one row east and the other row west,
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