Goal Setting | 072026

From Vague to Green: How to Set Goals Your Team Knows How to Win

July 14th, 2026, from 1:00-1:30 pm ET

Why most goals fail before the quarter even starts

If you’ve ever reached Week 8 of a quarter and realized a goal is going to miss — but nobody saw it coming — you’re not alone. Most goal failures aren’t execution problems. They’re setup problems.

When goals lack clear success criteria, when Priorities and KPIs get blurred, or when goal lists are a flat pile of everything-is-important, your team spends more time debating status than actually moving the needle.

This session fixes that. In 30 minutes, we’ll walk through the three foundations of a goal system that creates real accountability — and show you exactly how to build it in Rhythm before Q3 kicks off.

This session is for you if:

You’re new to Rhythm (0–6 months in) and want to start Q3 on the right foot
You’ve been in Rhythm a while but your goals feel more like a list than a plan
You’re a team leader who wants your people tracking the right things for the right reasons
You’ve struggled to explain to your team why their goal turned red — before it was too late

What you’ll walk away with

This isn’t a product tour. It’s a practical training session built around the decisions you’ll make this week as you set up Q3. Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. The RYG Success Criteria Framework

Red, Yellow, and Green status isn’t just a traffic light — it’s a contract with your team about what success actually looks like. You’ll learn how to write all three criteria before a quarter starts, so status updates become facts instead of feelings.

2. KPIs vs. Quarterly Priorities in the 13-Week Race

These are two different things, and confusing them is one of the most common setup mistakes in Rhythm. We’ll clarify the distinction, show you how they work together, and make sure your Q3 plan has the right goal types in the right places.

3. Parent-Child Goal Linking: Accountability vs. Noise

Linking goals creates visibility — but only when the relationships are real. We’ll walk through how to use parent-child linking to build a chain of accountability from individual contributors up to company priorities, and how to avoid the over-linking trap that turns your dashboard into noise.

4. Live Build: A Q3 Goal, Start to Finish

We’ll build a real goal in Rhythm from scratch, live on screen — naming it, setting RYG criteria, assigning an owner, and linking it to the right Annual Priority. You’ll see every decision narrated in real time.

About the Workshop

About the Keep Smart Webinar Series

Keep Smart is Rhythm Systems’ ongoing client education series — practical, live sessions designed to help your team get more out of the Rhythm platform and the Think Rhythm® methodology. Sessions are free for all clients and always recorded.

Past sessions have covered topics like running effective annual planning, KPI setup best practices, and using AI in your weekly rhythms. This Back to Basics session is designed for teams heading into a new quarter who want to set themselves up for a strong finish.

Meet Katie Schmarr

Success Coach

Katie Schmarr is an expert Success Coach for Rhythm Systems, specializing in helping firms with over $10M in revenue focus and align their teams to accelerate their growth by establishing a healthy rhythm of strategic thinking, execution planning, and doing the work.

She serves as a dedicated partner who guides clients through their implementation journey, ensuring they adopt key features of the Rhythm platform and achieve their goals through consistent coaching and proactive support. From accelerating time to value and aligning stakeholders across the client team, to connecting product usage back to each client's original business goals, Katie brings a trusted-advisor approach to every engagement — helping leaders stay committed, on track, and growing.