In a meeting today I was presented with a list of aims and objectives. I’m sure I’ve been presented with these kind of things many times before, but today was the day it occurred to me to potentially make myself look more than a little ignorant. ‘What’s the difference between an aim and an objective?’ I asked. Maybe it is my urge to keep things simple that made me think that these two words are, in essence, referring to the same thing – something that needs to be achieved.
Opinion gleaned through Google suggests that one is a quantifiable target, the other are the steps taken to reach this target – a kind of sub-target or mini-target. Whether it’s the aim or objective that is the quantifiable target is less clear.
No coincidence then that in proposals and job appraisals across the english speaking world ‘aims and objectives’ have morphed into a single entity. My suggestion: I’m sticking to targets and steps.
Let′s discuss: leave a comment and see where the conversation goes