{"id":61,"date":"2007-05-25T14:48:43","date_gmt":"2007-05-25T18:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/?p=61"},"modified":"2016-01-04T10:17:10","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T15:17:10","slug":"smart-goals-what-are-they-how-can-they-help-you-and-why-so-few-really-know-how-to-set-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/61\/smart-goals-what-are-they-how-can-they-help-you-and-why-so-few-really-know-how-to-set-them","title":{"rendered":"SMART Goals: What They Are, Why They Are So Valuable (and why so many struggle with them)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I talk a lot with our clients about SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon, Realistic, and Time-bound steps toward fulfilling their strategic plans.\u00a0 I do this so frequently because my experience is that\u00a0the\u00a0best way\u00a0to\u00a0facilitate\u00a0(and track) progress\u00a0of strategic plans in meaningful and consistent\u00a0ways is to develop SMART goals.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Most people agree with me – and a few even attempt to set SMART goals once in awhile – but most of the time I find that people struggle with SMART goal development (even those who truly believe in their value and actually spend time attempting to set them).<\/p>\n

For example, I\u00a0recently had someone put forth the following as a SMART goal in one of our sessions:\u00a0“treat every customer with respect – starting today.”\u00a0 I explained that although this is a very good idea (I certainly will never argue with\u00a0treating all\u00a0customers in a respectful way), it is an example of a very poor SMART goal.\u00a0 That is because it is neither Specific (“respect” could mean a firm handshake to me, but it might mean offering someone coffee every time they come into the office to you) nor Measurable (I can’t measure “respect” – on the other hand, I can measure, for example,\u00a0how often someone shakes a hand or offers coffee).<\/p>\n

Because I’ve found that so many well-intentioned individuals struggle\u00a0with the concept of SMART goal-setting, I thought I’d write a\u00a0few\u00a0observations about\u00a0this\u00a0and\u00a0my experience of the\u00a0impact of truly<\/em><\/strong> SMART goals on teams and organizations (along with families and friendships as well):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. My experience is that most people who attempt to develop SMART\u00a0goals\u00a0typically wind up with a combination of what we call \u201cgood ideas\u201d and SMART goals \u2013 with good ideas normally outnumbering true SMART goals at about a 5 to 1 ratio.\u00a0 Most people believe that goals like “treat the customer with respect” are SMART goals\u00a0 . . . and fail to break good ideas like this one\u00a0into truly SMART goals (goals like “call every client Mr. or Ms. unless otherwise instructed, beginning today” or “great every customer with a handshake and a smile”).<\/li>\n
  2. My experience is\u00a0that \u201cgrinding\u201d good ideas into true SMART goals\u00a0can do\u00a04 things for a team: (a) help all team members to be more clear about what it is they\u00a0should do\u00a0before they begin doing it – a sort of “measure twice, cut once” approach to strategic and tactical planning.\u00a0 This clarity can greatly reduce the\u00a0number of “re-do’s” in an organization, and (b) give\u00a0everyone a clearer path toward bringing good ideas into reality – SMART goals leave nothing to the imagination in terms of how to go about getting things done, (c) clarify\u00a0what to say “no” to while pursuing their ideas (critical to increasing focus and decreasing time-related obstacles to making good ideas a reality),\u00a0and (d) provide a better sense of when good ideas are actually brought into reality (instead of having to guess about how well a strategic plan is moving forward).<\/li>\n
  3. Since SMART goal-setting typically takes more time and energy than good idea generation does, we recommend that leaders ask their employees to develop SMART goals only when: (a) leaders feel like they need clarity regarding what an employee is going to do (usually most important if the good idea is central to success or is going to take a lot of money to \u201cre-do\u201d if not done right) AND\/OR (b) leaders feel as though a good idea is not\u00a0being manifested\u00a0quickly enough or at a level of quality that is satisfying to them (by their nature, SMART goals provide more clarity regarding how to make a good idea happen more quickly and\/or occur at a higher level of quality).<\/li>\n
  4. Having said that, if a leader is absolutely SURE that a good idea is either not important enough to grind into SMART goals OR isn\u2019t worth bringing into reality, we normally ask that leader to consider whether or not\u00a0that idea\u00a0truly needs to be pursued within their organization at all (or, whether it truly is a “good” idea for their team at the present time).\u00a0 We’ve observed teams wasting a lot of precious time\u00a0pursuing ideas that aren\u2019t really truly valuable to\u00a0their team \u2013 which can result in lowered motivation and less time to pursue all kinds of truly good ideas.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Certainly, there are times when leaders have such a clear consensus with their employees about a good idea that SMART goal-setting is not necessary.\u00a0 For example, after years of working with my associate, Brian Mistler,\u00a0I\u00a0have a good idea of what to expect when I ask him to write a note to a client that I feel could use some assistence with\u00a0implementing an effective reward system\u00a0for his team.\u00a0\u00a0I don’t need to develop SMART goals for that good idea, because I’ve come to know what sort of\u00a0note Brian will write\u00a0.\u00a0\u00a0 However, we\u2019ve found this level of consensus to be the exception rather than the rule.\u00a0\u00a0Very frequently,\u00a0a good amount of time, energy, and money is wasted having to \u201cre-do\u201d good ideas that were not ground into SMART goals.<\/p>\n

    A FINAL NOTE ON SMART GOALS:<\/strong> SMART goal development is, in my experience, both challenging and rewarding.\u00a0 Like laying down blueprints before you build a house, it is often difficult to wait patiently as the plan develops.\u00a0 However, like good blueprints, SMART goals\u00a0can save a lot of heartache and confusion if done consistently well (can you imagine trying to build a home without a blueprint – nearly impossible and almost always foolish!).\u00a0 In order to help people practice developing some SMART goals, we’ve developed an “Online SMART Goal Coaching System.”\u00a0 For a complimentary sample of this system, click here<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I talk a lot with our clients about SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon, Realistic, and Time-bound steps toward fulfilling their strategic plans.\u00a0 I do this so frequently because my experience is that\u00a0the\u00a0best way\u00a0to\u00a0facilitate\u00a0(and track) progress\u00a0of strategic plans in meaningful and consistent\u00a0ways is to develop SMART goals.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Most people agree with me – and a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1276,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions\/1276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}