Being a strong communicator comes naturally for some, while for others, it’s an opportunity for growth. Some team members dominate conversations, while others might not feel comfortable sharing their ideas.
What you need is a way to create balance and build an environment where everyone can communicate confidently and effectively. That’s where communication goals come in.
Let’s look closer at communication goals, how you make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound), and what these goals might look like in practice.
We’ll explore real-life examples of goals and offer advice on how to set and track them in the best way possible.
10 SMART Communication Goals for Teams With Examples
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat is a Communication Goal?
A communication goal is a target that your team members can work towards to help them build strong, effective communication skills in the workplace. Many people find it difficult to adapt the way they communicate. Having clear goals makes it easier for them to remove communication barriers so they can improve and grow.
Most communication goals center around helping teams work better together. When team members struggle to communicate their challenges, schedules can suffer. Empowering your team to elevate their communication skills creates a more enjoyable environment for all, where everyone feels respected, listened to, and able to communicate clearly.
Managers might decide to set general communication goals for the whole team or specific targets for each team member. Even if you choose to create strategic goals for individuals, it’s still useful to have some guidelines for the entire team or company.
Summarize this article for me please🌟 Featured Template
Use the Communication Plan Template by ClickUp makes it easy to keep your team on the same page. With this template, you can quickly outline who needs to know what, how updates will be shared (like email, chat, or meetings), and how often everyone should check in.
It helps you organize all your communication in one place, so nothing slips through the cracks. If you want smoother teamwork and fewer misunderstandings, this template is a great place to start!
Summarize this article for me pleaseBenefits of Setting SMART Communication Goals
SMART communication goals stand for clear objectives you set for how your team communicates, using the SMART framework. They help break goals down using the following parameters:
- Specific: The goal clearly states what you want to achieve in your communication
- Measurable: You can track progress and know when the goal is met
- Achievable: The goal is realistic and possible for your team to reach
- Relevant: The goal supports your business goals, company values, or team needs
- Time-bound: There’s a deadline or time frame for reaching the goal
Why should you be using these? Let’s have a look!
| Benefit | What It means for your team |
|---|---|
| Clearer communication | SMART goals take the guesswork out of communication. Instead of setting a vague goal, teams know exactly what they’re working toward—making internal communication clearer and more focused. |
| Ties into bigger business goals | These goals don’t just sit on their own—they support your overall business goals and strategies. That means your communication actually helps drive business success. |
| Better ways to communicate | By setting specific targets, your team naturally starts to refine methods and sharpen how they deliver messages. It becomes part of a more effective strategy overall. |
| Easier to measure progress | With measurable goals in place, you’re not just talking—you’re tracking. You get valuable insights into what’s working and where to adjust for better organizational performance. |
| Keeps things on schedule | Because SMART goals are time-bound, everyone knows when things need to happen. It makes the planning process smoother and keeps communication aligned with deadlines. |
| Boosts employee morale and involvement | When communication goals are realistic and aligned with company values, employees feel more connected and involved. |
| Helps remote teams stay connected | For remote team members, clear SMART goals offer structure and make sure everyone’s on the same page—even if they’re working from different locations. |
| Improves active listening and engagement | When people know what’s expected, they get to listen in better and contribute more actively. |
| Makes the most of what you’ve got | SMART communication doesn’t always need new tools—it helps you make better use of your existing resources to get real results. |
🧠 Did You Know? Research shows that organizations utilizing SMART goals experienced a significant difference in outcomes compared to those relying on vague objectives. This structured approach not only provides a clear roadmap for achievement but also fosters a culture of constructive feedback, leading to improvements in employee satisfaction and productivity.
So what does it look like in action? Here’s a SMART communication goal example:
A manager notices that during weekly project meetings, they do most of the talking while team members stay quiet. To encourage more balanced participation, the manager sets a SMART goal:
Goal: “In the next five weekly meetings, ensure that each team member speaks for at least 20% of the total meeting time. We’ll use a meeting app that tracks and reports individual talk time to measure this.”
Why is this SMART?
- Specific: The goal targets equal participation, with each member speaking at least 20% of the time
- Measurable: The meeting app provides real-time data and a summary after each meeting
- Achievable: The team size and meeting format make this realistic
- Relevant: More balanced participation leads to better team communication and knowledge sharing
- Time-bound: The goal is to be achieved within the next five meetings
By setting communication goals this way, you make it easier for your team to understand, take action, and succeed together. SMART goals turn vague intentions into clear, achievable steps for better teamwork.
📮ClickUp Insight: 42% of team members still rely heavily on email for communication despite its siloed nature.
According to research by ClickUp, communication is often siloed and separate from actual workflows. To prevent broken communication, integrate messaging into your workflows with a centralized platform that unites project management, collaboration, and communication.
📥 Download The State of Workplace Communication Report by ClickUp to uncover more insights—and what you can do to close the gaps.
Summarize this article for me please10 Communication Goal Examples for Your Team
Building a proper communication strategy from scratch can be overwhelming. Luckily, we’ve done the research on the best communication goals to have in the workplace.
Here are some common communication goals that managers can introduce for their teams, alongside examples of SMART goals that can help you achieve each one.
1. Be clear and concise
It’s hard to get your message across without communicating accurately. Many people struggle with being concise, adding in filler words, pauses, and unnecessary details. The outcome is that your main message can get lost, and your audience might lose interest along the way. Instead, practice being clear and concise.
Convey your message in as few words as possible, cutting out any details that don’t feel relevant. Apply this to your public speaking skills, your written communication, and your nonverbal communication for the biggest impact.
🎯 SMART goal example
Reduce the number of filler words in your team updates by 20% by this time next month. 💬
💡Pro Tip: Ask ClickUp Brain, ClickUp’s built-in AI assistant, to help you come up with SMART goals
2. Prioritize the most important message
Whether you’re giving a project update or leading a company-wide meeting, it’s normal to have more than one thing to discuss. Even when you only have one message to share, it’s easy to focus on the wrong element of it and cause confusion.
Aim to prioritize the key message and make it stand out. Here’s how:
- Reflect on your communication objectives and what it is you’re trying to communicate
- Consider your target audience and the best way to deliver the message
- Prepare your update, talk, or presentation beforehand, and check with a team member to ensure your intended message is clear
ClickUp’s Internal Communication Strategy and Action Plan Template makes it easy for you to:
- Identify communication goals and objectives
- Develop a plan of action with measurable metrics
- Organize tasks and track progress in one place
🎯 SMART goal example
Restructure your team update so that one key deliverable, success story, or challenge is highlighted in the next all-hands meeting. Any other updates can be shared in the meeting notes. 🎉
3. Use data and research to support your message
Too often, we don’t make the most of the resources or existing knowledge we have. If you have data and metrics available to you, use them. Data can support your arguments, illustrate the value of a project, and demonstrate your success. Not only is this useful for internal business communication, but for talking with external stakeholders, too.
Support your statements, presentations, objectives, and outcomes with the data and insights you hold. Use them to strengthen your position, suggest an alternative route forward, or celebrate how impressive your team’s work was.
🎯 SMART goal example
Record customer experience scores so that in the future, you can highlight these when talking about the success of your customer success team. 💚
➡️ Read More: Marketing Goals Examples to Achieve Your Objectives
4. Remove acronyms and highly technical language
In the business world, there’s always another new acronym or phrase.
For some of your team members, these might be commonplace and easy for them to understand. For other people, they’re confusing and detract from the message you’re trying to share.
Avoid acronyms and technical language as much as possible to aid with clear communication.
Ask your team members to keep their updates to the wider team as user-friendly as possible. Use technical language for your team standup meetings, but swap to more everyday wording when communicating with a wider audience. If some phrases are necessary and come up often, create a company-wide glossary or guide and make this readily available.
🎯 SMART goal example
Reduce the use of highly technical language and adopt a more user-friendly language style for company updates by the next meeting. ⚒️
5. Make your communication more inclusive
In many workplaces, many of the most important company updates happen during live meetings. This presents problems for team members who aren’t able to attend and for those who find verbal updates difficult to follow. Aim to make your communications as inclusive as possible and break down barriers if they exist.
Consider how you can use different types of communication—including written, visual, and verbal communication. Record your important meetings and make these recordings available, and use an AI note-taking tool to provide an instant summary. Consider the language you use, too, and opt for inclusive and nongendered language as a default.
🎯 SMART goal example
Make a video recording of every company-wide meeting available within 24 hours, along with a reliable written transcript, starting from the next meeting. 💻
6. Communicate with confidence
Whether you’re in a leadership position or not, being able to communicate with confidence is a highly valuable skill. Using your words, pacing, body language, and writing style to convey confidence can inspire your team members to make a strong point, pose a question, or close a deal.
Some people are naturally confident leaders, while others might appreciate guidance on achieving this. Coach your team members on how to make eye contact, how to communicate clearly, and how to field challenging questions from an audience.
🎯 SMART goal example
Take a short course on communicating more confidently by the end of the year. 📚
7. Use storytelling for good
Many people overlook the value of storytelling in workplace communication, but it’s just as valid here as it is in the creative world. Adding storytelling to your communication style makes your updates more fun, engaging, and impactful.
Look for ways to use real-life evidence and examples to enhance the message you want to share. Proactively collect customer testimonials, case studies, and imagery that might be useful at some point so you always have a bank of story ideas ready to go.
🎯 SMART goal example
Source a real-life story or example to share alongside your next project impact update for the company newsletter. 🌍
8. Keep everyone updated
It’s easy to miss information if you can’t make a meeting or don’t log in to your company intranet that day. Companies with a strong internal communication culture use multiple communication channels to ensure everyone gets the message.
Review the channels and internal communication software apps you currently use and decide whether they work. Recommend alternatives to your communications team, like podcasts, blogs, and a daily update in Slack.
Think about how you can get your team’s voices heard through these channels and proactively work with your communications team to raise awareness, share successes, and ask for support.
ClickUp Chat offers a powerful way to keep your team connected and informed. You can use it to create dedicated chat channels for different projects, teams, or topics, making it easy to organize conversations and keep discussions focused.
Tag teammates, share files, and even link tasks or documents directly in the chat, so everything stays in context. Threaded replies help keep conversations organized, and you can set reminders or assign action items right from the chat window. Plus, since ClickUp Chat is integrated with your workspace, it’s easy to reference past conversations and search for important information.
🎯 SMART goal example
Agree on a process with the communications team to include a regular slot about your team in the company newsletter by the end of the year. 📝 Resources like ClickUp’s Employee Communication Template has everything you need to keep everyone on the same page.
9. Become an active participant
Most companies and teams have individuals who are loud and dominate conversations, while others will say as little as possible, even when prompted. Neither communication style is inherently wrong, but you should look for ways to encourage quieter team members to get more involved—if they desire to.
Talk to your team members and understand whether there are any barriers in the way of them speaking up so you can add some training resources or ideas to their personal development plan alongside relevant goals to encourage and motivate them.
Introduce video call software highlighting talk time, create dedicated space on team meeting agendas for every member, and support their preferred communication styles. All these strategies give you a way to empower your team members to become more active players in meetings, events, and client calls.
This is where you can take advantage of tools like the ClickUp AI Notetaker. This tool can automatically join your meetings, transcribe conversations, and generate clear summaries and point you to the correct action items.
With ClickUp AI Notetaker, everyone can easily catch up on what was discussed—even if they couldn’t attend or didn’t feel comfortable speaking up in the moment. It also helps quieter team members review meeting notes at their own pace and contribute their thoughts afterward, making meetings more inclusive and ensuring that every voice has a chance to be heard.
🎯 SMART goal example
Create a new team meeting agenda that features space for every individual to share a work update and a fun or personal update by next month. 🙌
10. Share your wins
Much of a manager’s time is spent juggling priorities and handling issues, so it’s no surprise that we often forget to celebrate our hard work and give valuable feedback. Start highlighting your wins and handing out praise to increase employee engagement and create a positive work environment.
Look for opportunities to shout out about the great work your team is doing at all-hands meetings, in company newsletters, and in company-wide Slack channels. Create space for your team members to share their wins, and include praise wherever possible. Positivity is contagious, and this feel-good atmosphere can encourage team members to participate and communicate more effectively.
🎯 SMART goal example
Reserve space at the start or end of every team catch-up to share your wins, and encourage every team member to participate at least once per month. 🤩
➡️ Read More: Top 20 Communication Trends Shaping the Future of Work
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Meet Your Communication Goals
Achieving your communication goals takes more than good intentions—it takes structure, strategy, and the right tools.
Whether you’re aiming to improve internal communication, align with broader business strategies, or drive organizational success, here are three actionable steps to help you get there using goal-tracking tools like ClickUp.
1. Set your communication goals (The SMART way)
The first step is to clearly define what you want to achieve. Use the SMART criteria to set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. These smart objectives provide a clear roadmap for your communication efforts.
Here’s where ClickUp Goals come in.
You can easily set and organize your communication goals within ClickUp, breaking them down into smaller, trackable targets tied to desired outcomes.
Whether it’s improving internal email engagement or increasing participation in team meetings, ClickUp helps ensure your goals are visible, actionable, and aligned with your team’s needs.
✅ Example: Set a ClickUp Goal to “Increase active participation in monthly town halls by 30% in Q3.”
By turning abstract intentions into achievable goals, you support consistent progress and measurable impact.
2. Track your progress in real time
Once your goals are set, the next step is to track your progress and stay aligned. Consistency is key when trying to communicate effectively, especially across distributed or hybrid teams.
Custom Dashboards offer a real-time snapshot of your team’s efforts, making it easier to keep up consistent communication and optimize as you go.
With ClickUp Dashboards, you can:
- Visualize how your team is progressing toward communication goals
- Monitor engagement metrics like feedback rates or content reach
- Align performance data with overall business strategies
3. Review and capture insights faster
To keep improving, it’s essential to review your efforts regularly. This could mean running an internal communication audit or analyzing recent data to understand what’s working—and what’s not.
ClickUp makes this process smoother by keeping everything in one unified workspace with AI-powered project management features like AI cards and more. You can use it to:
- Reflect on previous goals and outcomes
- Spot trends and engagement gaps quickly
- Capture valuable insights to guide future strategies
This not only helps improve overall performance but also nurtures emotional intelligence across your team by encouraging thoughtful feedback and reflection.
By using tools like ClickUp to set clear goals, track them consistently, and review outcomes intelligently, your internal communication becomes more focused, data-driven, and impactful—playing a significant role in long-term business success.
➡️ Read More: SMART Professional Goal Examples & Ideas for Work
Summarize this article for me pleaseSet and Master Your Communication Goals
Meeting your internal communication goals doesn’t have to be complicated. With the right structure and direction, your team can move from scattered messages to strategic, consistent communication that drives real results.
ClickUp is built to help you do exactly that. Whether you’re setting smart objectives, tracking progress with visual dashboards, or reviewing performance after an internal communication audit, ClickUp brings everything into one place—saving time, improving clarity, and aligning your goals with broader business strategies.
👉 Ready to align your communication with your business goals? Start using ClickUp today!
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