CLEAR Goals

Table of Contents

  1. Definition
  2. How It Relates to Marketing
  3. How to Set a CLEAR Goal
    1. CLEAR Element Diagnostic Questions
  4. How to Utilize CLEAR Goals
  5. Comparison to Similar Frameworks
  6. Best Practices
  7. Future Trends
  8. FAQs
  9. Related Terms
  10. Sources

Definition

CLEAR Goals is a goal-setting framework designed for collaborative, fast-changing, and team-based environments. It emphasizes emotional engagement, flexibility, and shared ownership rather than the fixed, individually oriented criteria of older frameworks. The acronym stands for:

  • Collaborative — goals are designed and pursued by teams, drawing on the talents, knowledge, and perspectives of multiple people.
  • Limited — goals are bounded in scope and duration so they remain focused and achievable.
  • Emotional — goals connect to personal and organizational values, building genuine commitment.
  • Appreciable — large goals are broken into smaller sub-goals so progress is visible and momentum is maintained.
  • Refinable — goals can be adjusted as new information emerges or circumstances change, rather than locked into rigid plans.

The framework is commonly attributed to Adam Kreek, a Canadian Olympic gold medalist rower turned management consultant, author, and executive coach. The CLEAR strategic planning methodology was founded by management consultant and former Olympic gold medalist Adam Kreek. Kreek has taught and coached about SMART goal-setting for a decade. Kreek developed the framework while planning a multi-year expedition to row across the Atlantic Ocean unsupported in a 29-foot rowboat, an undertaking that exposed what he saw as the limitations of the SMART model for complex, collaborative, long-horizon projects. He later detailed the framework in his book The Responsibility Ethic. Tom Spencer

CLEAR was conceived explicitly as an alternative or complement to SMART Goals. The SMART model, Kreek believes, fails to account for the “innate emotional and collaborative nature of big projects.” It is also not flexible enough to adjust for unexpected outcomes. The framework draws on emotional-intelligence research, including the work of Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence and Dean Keith Simonton on long-term achievement. Tom Spencer

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How It Relates to Marketing

CLEAR Goals is well-suited to marketing because modern marketing work is typically cross-functional, fast-changing, and dependent on team collaboration. Common applications include:

  • Cross-functional campaign planning — designing campaign goals collaboratively across brand, demand generation, content, product marketing, and creative teams.
  • Agile marketing — supporting iterative, sprint-based marketing where goals must be refined as performance data arrives.
  • Team motivation and engagement — using the “Emotional” element to connect marketing teams to brand purpose and customer impact.
  • Quarterly planning workshops — used in inception or kickoff workshops where executives and marketing teams jointly set focused, adaptable quarterly objectives.
  • Milestone-based campaign delivery — breaking large initiatives (rebrands, product launches, market entry) into appreciable milestones to maintain momentum.
  • Adaptive roadmaps — adjusting marketing priorities mid-quarter based on beta feedback, market shifts, or campaign results without abandoning the overall objective.
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How to Set a CLEAR Goal

CLEAR is a qualitative, team-oriented framework rather than a numerical calculation. The typical process:

  1. Set the goal collaboratively. Involve the people who will deliver the work — and relevant stakeholders — in defining the goal, so it draws on diverse expertise and creates shared ownership.
  2. Limit the scope and timeframe. Define what the goal is and what it is not, bounding it to a manageable scope and a reasonable duration so it stays focused.
  3. Connect it emotionally. Articulate why the goal matters in terms of personal and organizational values, giving each contributor a genuine stake in the outcome.
  4. Break it into appreciable sub-goals. Divide the goal into discrete milestones so progress is visible and teams agree in advance on what constitutes meaningful progress.
  5. Build in refinement. Establish a cadence for reviewing the goal and explicit permission to adjust it (and the trade-offs involved) as new information emerges.
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CLEAR Element Diagnostic Questions

ElementDiagnostic Question
CollaborativeHave the people delivering the work helped shape this goal? Does it draw on multiple perspectives?
LimitedIs the scope and timeframe bounded enough to stay focused and achievable?
EmotionalDoes the goal connect to personal and organizational values in a way that builds commitment?
AppreciableIs the goal broken into milestones that make progress visible?
RefinableIs there a defined way to adjust the goal as conditions change?
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How to Utilize CLEAR Goals

Common use cases include:

  • Agile and iterative delivery — particularly software, product, and marketing teams operating in fast-changing conditions.
  • Team and group goal-setting — where shared ownership and collaboration matter more than individual accountability.
  • Inception and kickoff workshops — multi-day strategic planning sessions where leadership and delivery teams jointly set quarterly goals and roadmaps.
  • Complex, long-horizon initiatives — large projects where the path is uncertain and goals must evolve (expeditions, transformations, new product development).
  • Strategic planning — as a more dynamic alternative to rigid annual planning.
  • Change-prone environments — initiatives where new information regularly requires adjustment without losing the overall objective.
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Comparison to Similar Frameworks

FrameworkFocusOriginPrimary Use
CLEAR GoalsCollaborative, flexible, emotionally engaged goal-settingAdam KreekTeam-based, agile, change-prone environments
SMART GoalsSpecific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-boundGeorge T. Doran (1981)Individual goal formulation and clarity
FAST GoalsFrequent, Ambitious, Specific, TransparentSull & Sull / MIT Sloan (2018)Organizational strategy execution
HARD GoalsHeartfelt, Animated, Required, DifficultMark Murphy (2011)Motivation-driven, ambitious individual goals
OKRObjectives + measurable Key ResultsAndy Grove / Intel (1970s)Strategy execution; alignment; stretch goals

CLEAR shares OKR’s and FAST’s emphasis on teams, transparency, and adaptability, and shares HARD’s emphasis on emotional engagement. Many practitioners note that CLEAR and SMART are complementary rather than mutually exclusive — CLEAR’s “Limited” element preserves SMART’s discipline of bounding scope and timeframe, while CLEAR adds collaboration, emotion, and refinability on top.

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Best Practices

  • Genuinely involve the delivery team. “Collaborative” is undermined if goals are set top-down and only labeled collaborative. The people doing the work should shape the goal.
  • Define what the goal is not. Bounding the goal explicitly (the “Limited” element) prevents scope creep and keeps the team focused.
  • Make the emotional connection explicit. Don’t assume the team feels the “why.” Articulate how the goal connects to personal and organizational values.
  • Agree on what progress means in advance. For “Appreciable” goals, teams and stakeholders should agree beforehand on what level of improvement counts as meaningful so milestones are recognized consistently.
  • Pre-authorize refinement and trade-offs. “Refinable” works best when leadership grants explicit permission to adjust goals and defines the trade-offs (e.g., budget vs. deadline) before issues arise.
  • Use a regular review cadence. Schedule recurring reviews to incorporate new information; refinement should be deliberate, not ad hoc.
  • Pair with SMART discipline where useful. Some practitioners argue CLEAR functions best as an extension of SMART, retaining specificity and time-bounding while adding collaboration, emotion, and flexibility.
  • Don’t use refinability as an excuse for drift. Refinement should incorporate genuine new information, not justify abandoning commitments without cause.
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  • Alignment with agile and product operating models. As agile delivery, continuous discovery, and product-led approaches spread, CLEAR’s emphasis on collaboration and refinability fits naturally and is increasingly used in inception and quarterly planning workshops.
  • Integration with OKRs. Teams increasingly combine CLEAR’s collaborative, emotional, and refinable principles with the structure and measurement of OKRs.
  • Emotional intelligence in goal-setting. Growing attention to emotional intelligence, psychological safety, and employee engagement supports frameworks like CLEAR that explicitly incorporate emotional commitment.
  • Adaptive strategy and continuous planning. Organizations moving away from rigid annual planning toward rolling, adaptive planning find CLEAR’s refinable element well-aligned with that shift.
  • AI-assisted goal facilitation. Emerging AI planning and facilitation tools incorporate CLEAR-style prompts to help distributed teams co-create goals and surface when refinement is warranted.
  • Continued positioning as a SMART alternative. CLEAR remains part of an active practitioner conversation — alongside FAST and HARD — about the limitations of traditional, achievability-focused, individually oriented goal-setting.
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FAQs

1. Who created the CLEAR Goals framework? The framework is commonly attributed to Adam Kreek, a Canadian Olympic gold medalist rower, management consultant, and author. He developed it while planning a multi-year transatlantic rowing expedition and later detailed it in his book The Responsibility Ethic.

2. What does CLEAR stand for? Collaborative, Limited, Emotional, Appreciable, and Refinable. Each element addresses a perceived gap in the SMART framework for collaborative, fast-changing, long-horizon work.

3. How is CLEAR different from SMART? SMART focuses on individual goal clarity and achievability. CLEAR emphasizes team collaboration, emotional engagement, incremental visible progress, and the ability to adapt goals as conditions change. Kreek argues SMART does not account well for the emotional and collaborative nature of large projects or for changing circumstances.

4. Does CLEAR replace SMART? Not necessarily. Many practitioners treat the two as complementary. CLEAR’s “Limited” element preserves SMART’s discipline of bounding scope and timeframe; some argue CLEAR is effectively an extension of SMART for team and agile contexts.

5. What does “Appreciable” mean? It means large goals are broken into smaller sub-goals or milestones so that progress is visible and recognizable. This maintains motivation by allowing teams to see forward movement rather than waiting for a single distant outcome.

6. What does “Refinable” mean in practice? It means goals can be adjusted as new information or conditions arise, rather than locked rigidly in place. Refinement is intended to incorporate genuine learning (such as beta feedback) while preserving the overall objective.

7. Is CLEAR mainly for teams or individuals? CLEAR is primarily designed for teams and collaborative projects. Its first element — Collaborative — and its emphasis on shared ownership make it most applicable to group goal-setting, though individuals can apply elements such as emotional connection and refinability.

8. Where is CLEAR commonly used? It is widely used in agile software development (often in multi-day inception or kickoff workshops), product management, marketing, and complex long-horizon initiatives where conditions change frequently.

9. What are the main criticisms of CLEAR? Common observations are that CLEAR depends on SMART-style discipline (particularly bounding scope) to be effective, that “Refinable” can be misused to justify drift if not governed carefully, and that the framework is less precise about measurement than SMART or OKRs.

10. How does CLEAR relate to emotional intelligence? The “Emotional” element is grounded in emotional-intelligence research, drawing on work such as Daniel Goleman’s on emotional intelligence and Dean Keith Simonton’s on long-term achievement. The framework’s premise is that commitment and collaboration — not just analytical precision — drive goal achievement.

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  1. SMART Goals
  2. Objectives and Key Results (OKR)
  3. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
  4. FAST Goals
  5. Management by Objectives (MBO)
  6. HARD Goals
  7. Agile Goal-Setting
  8. Emotional Intelligence
  9. Goal-Setting Theory (Locke & Latham)
  10. Strategy Execution
  11. Inception Workshop
  12. Adaptive Planning
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Sources

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