How to Use Cascading Goals

The right goals can make the difference between a focused, high-performance organization and one that’s stuck spinning its wheels. 

While not every organization will (or should) have the same objectives, the way goals are structured and communicated matters just as much as the goals themselves. That’s where cascading goals come in. 

By connecting high-level strategic objectives to team and individual priorities, cascading goals boost clarity, drive accountability, and help every employee understand how their day-to-day work makes a difference. 

Here’s why cascading goals matter, how to create them in practice, and how HR tech like Lattice helps teams turn strategy into aligned, meaningful action. 

What are cascading goals?

Cascading goals are strategic objectives broken down across levels of the organization. At the top of the organization, leadership teams set overarching goals that then cascade down. Each department, team, and employee then sets their own goals, which align with and support the level above them. 

The intention is to ensure alignment between the overall company vision and individual work. 

Cascading vs. Top-Down Goals vs. OKRs 

Objectives and key results (OKRs), top-down, cascading goals…there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to the goal-setting process. Here’s how they compare:

Many organizations blend elements of different goal-setting approaches to create a system that works for them. Lattice supports both structured OKRs and flexible goal cascading, helping organizations stay aligned on outcomes while empowering employees to take ownership of their everyday work. 

Why Cascading Goals Matter

Cascading goals help boost efficiency and effectiveness for the overall organization and every employee within it. Here are three ways they help create the conditions for alignment, clarity, and agility. 

Goal Alignment 

Cascading goals start at the top of the organization and flow downward, helping ensure everyone is aligned and working towards the same objectives. In addition to improving clarity, this kind of strategic alignment also helps with prioritization.

Rachel Cooke, founder and CEO of Lead Above Noise, a team, leadership, and organizational development consultancy, explained that high-level goals can provide filters to help determine which initiatives and projects should be pursued. “If a piece of work doesn’t ladder up to an enterprise goal, then it’s likely low priority,” she said. 

Clarity of Purpose 

Cascading goals aren’t just designed for organizational clarity. They also help employees see how their work directly contributes and makes an impact on the organization as a whole. This can help boost employee engagement and motivation because everyone understands how their work makes a difference. 

“[Cascading goals] prevent people within the company from putting time and effort into work that isn’t supporting the company’s overall objectives, and they should also prevent overlap in the work people are doing,” explained Ellen Mullarkey, vice president of talent advisory solutions at Messina Talent Advisors, a staffing and consulting company.

This also boosts operational optimization, said Mullarkey: “The purpose is to achieve coordinated and efficient action in a specific direction in a way that makes the best use of everyone’s time and efforts.”

At any given time, most organizations have more projects than resources to support them. Cascading goals help teams identify which projects are distractions and focus on the ones that contribute to company success and growth. 

Organizational Agility

Cascading goals help organizations stay nimble and goal-driven, especially when working in distributed teams. By connecting everyday work to strategic objectives, cascading goals help everyone move in the same direction, even when they’re working in different locations.

Because individual, team, and department goals are interconnected, it’s also easier to assess the impact of a change in direction. When priorities shift, teams can quickly assess whether their goals need to be adapted. 

Cascading goals also make it easier to get the right balance between alignment and autonomy. Teams can see how their work contributes to the organization’s overall goals, but still have the flexibility to decide the best way to deliver results. This adaptability is especially important for distributed teams, where self-direction and visibility are key to performance. 

Common Misconceptions and Pitfalls

Cascading goals are a powerful way to create alignment, clarity, and agility. But only when they’re implemented in the right way. Here are a few common misconceptions, plus how to avoid the potential pitfalls that can come with them.

Myth: Cascading goals are just micromanaging.

Using cascading goals doesn’t mean executives dictate employee goals. The cascading goal system is designed to empower teams and individual employees to define their own goals. The only rule is that they have to be aligned with the organization’s broader goal. 

Myth: Cascading goals create bottlenecks.

Goals should connect different levels of the organization, not constrain employees. If the process is taken too literally and made too hierarchical, it can cause bottlenecks. Instead, think of these goals as a network of interconnected efforts, not an overly rigid system where every goal depends wholly on the one above it. 

Myth: Cascading goals delay execution.

Cascading goals should accelerate execution, not slow it down. If teams are waiting for executive objectives to be finalized, this can create delays. Instead, aim for speed and iteration, with team and individual goals being refined as the bigger picture becomes clear. 

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How to Create Cascading Goals in Practice 

1. Start with clear company-level objectives.

The first step in creating cascading goals is to define a clear, overarching goal. “Your organization has to know what its overall objective is, whether that’s a short-term objective or a longer-term vision for the direction of the company,” said Mullarkey. 

The CEO and executive team should drive this process. By starting with specific, measurable company-level goals, the executive team can set the levels below them up for success. 

Cooke mentioned that while these top-level goals need to be specific, they should also be inspiring: “We want to know whether or not we’ve achieved it (specificity), but we also need people to care about achieving it — to be engaged in the process (inspiration).”

Fewer business goals bring greater focus. But every organization has unique needs, so multiple goals might be necessary. Because more goals often result in a more complex cascading process, clear communication and processes are crucial.

2. Encourage departments to align their goals with the top-level objectives. 

Once any organization-wide goals are set, each department can then define how it’ll contribute to them. That starts with clear communication of strategic goals, so every team understands the direction of travel and can set their own relevant team goals.

Each department also needs to evaluate its strengths and opportunities before creating goals. “The real key here with cascading goals is that, even though they are flowing from the top down, that doesn’t mean you should be assigning tasks to teams and employees in a rigid manner,” explained Mullarkey. 

“Rather, you should be making sure they know what hill it is your team is trying to conquer and let them figure out what their contribution is going to be and exactly how they are going to achieve their part of the objective.” Mullarkey added that this is critical to keep everyone engaged, involved in the decision-making process, and committed to reaching their own goals, which form the next stage of the process. 

3. Managers align team and individual goals with departmental priorities.

After departments have established their goals, managers play a critical role in aligning their team and employees’ goals with those priorities. Employees should be encouraged to set their own relevant, measurable goals, with manager guidance to ensure alignment.

Managers need to create space for open dialogue and two-way feedback, so employees at every level understand leadership’s thought process. And the reverse is just as important: Leadership needs visibility into the realities teams are facing on the ground.

This 360-degree feedback loop keeps everyone informed and allows teams and managers to find and fix early signs of misalignment. Employee-level information that’s communicated up to the executive level is just as crucial as information that’s communicated from the executives down. 

Once everyone’s goals are set, Cooke recommends a sense check: “When we look at all the frontline goals, can we draw a clear line from each up to the enterprise goals?” If the answer is no, something’s off.

Cooke added that effective team or individual performance goals should always ladder up to the organizational goal. “It might be hard to make the leap from a frontline employee goal directly to the enterprise goal, but as long as the junior employee’s goal links to the layer just above, and that layer’s goal links to the layer above them, ultimately, that cascade will serve its purpose.”

If a goal doesn’t connect at all, or the link isn’t clear, it’s a sign the team may need to revisit and refine their approach. “If one truly cannot find a link at all to an enterprise goal, that may be a signal that the goal is just off-course,” said Cooke. If that’s the case, managers, employees, and HR need to work together to reevaluate and redefine the goal. 

4. Ensure visibility across teams to avoid silos and misalignment.

Cascading goals aren’t just about structure; they’re also about visibility. Because they allow teams to see how their work connects with others, cascading goals make it easier to track progress toward shared outcomes.

Without this kind of visibility, silos can start to form, and progress toward goals can stall. To avoid this, Julie Barker, a member of Lattice’s Fractional HR program and former VP of talent at Zylo, suggested combining cascading goals with an OKR framework.

Speaking about her work at Zylo, Barker said, “In our quarterly OKR reviews, we review against goals as well as values, so this has been a great way to keep our values top of mind and [understand] how we get goals completed vs. just did we get them completed.” She recalled feedback from a cross-functional project: Without a shared priority OKR across multiple departments, the company may not have accomplished a goal.

Visibility also ties into accountability. Cascading goals should be embedded into incentive and performance structures that reward each employee’s progress toward these goals. When goals shift, remember to adjust pay and incentive structures to align with and reinforce those new priorities. These adjustments can be part of HR’s regular evaluations of cascading goals. 

If strict alignment isn’t possible from top to bottom, an organization may want to look into other goal-setting frameworks, such as SMART goals or OKRs. With any framework, organizations should focus on setting goals that are specific, measurable, and transparent across all teams and levels.

But when cascading goals are visible, supported, and rewarded, they become more than just strategy — they help employees connect their everyday work to the bigger picture. 

Best Practices for Cascading Goals 

Cascading goals are most effective when supported by consistent best practices, including:

• Using SMART goals: Even with cascading goals, the SMART framework can help ensure objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
• Reviewing and adjusting quarterly: Regular check-ins help ensure goals can be adjusted to meet shifting priorities. 
• Promoting transparency: Encourage everyone to share updates to boost visibility, build trust, and foster accountability. 
• Using HR tech to spot blockers early: Make the most of analytics features, which help identify misalignments or stalled goals before they impact performance. 

Real-World Examples

Use these real-world examples to see how cascading goals can work in practice. 

• Company goal: Increase net revenue by 20% this year 
  
  • Sales team: Grow pipeline by 25% by the end of Q2
  • Sales manager: Increase team win rate by 10% through coaching and training
  • Sales rep: Close 15 deals per quarter, with an average value of $10,000

• Company goal: Expand into a new market
  
  • Marketing team: Increase awareness in X regions by 20% 
  • Marketing manager: Launch three region-specific campaigns 
  • Marketing specialist: Adapt campaign content for each region and publish social media content twice per week

• Company goal: Improve employee engagement score by 10 points 
  
  • People team: Launch new employee recognition program by the end of Q1
  • Managers: Complete monthly one-on-ones with each team member
  • Employee: Submit peer feedback each quarter 

Lattice’s Role in Cascading Goals 

Cascading goals work best when there’s clarity, alignment, and visibility across all levels of the organization. HR technology like Lattice makes that possible by giving teams the ability to set and track goals and connect their work to the bigger picture. 

With Lattice, users can:

• Visualize alignment at every level: Lattice OKRs & Goals lets users see how individual, team, and department goals ladder up to company objectives. 
• Gain AI-powered insights: Lattice AI recommends goal alignments and flags potential conflicts or redundancies before they become an issue. 
• Keep goals top of mind: Managers and employees can check in on their goals regularly, keeping them top of mind and embedding them into their everyday work. 
• Connect goals to performance: Lattice directly ties goals to performance reviews, reinforcing accountability and recognizing achievements. 

Ready to start creating cascading goals? Use our goal-setting and tracking template to effectively set and monitor your goals.

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