Making sure you have clear and well defined goals is part of running a successful business. But what exactly is a clear goal, as opposed to an unclear goal?
Having an overarching goal that the entire business is working towards helps to maintain the structure and flow of all of a businesses operations. But sometimes goals can become obscure, which can cause the business to go in unfavourable directions. In this sense the goal would be unclear.
Goals work well when all employees within the business can understand it and make sense of it. Having a goal of improving stockholder relations might be a good and worthy goal for your business, but do all your employees know who or what your stockholders even are?
A goal like this would be a goal only for those who deal with this area of the business. Even though the other employees will likely be effected by it in some way, they would not be able to see the goal in this case. So it can be important to set goals for the business as a whole.