writing and then rewriting your goals
Dealing with Difficult People
five. how to write goals that will stretch you but not make you despair.
I was talking to a friend this week about the performance-review cycle, and the challenges of writing a development plan that feeds into a larger organisational strategy, and so on up the mountain to the very top. There are many reasons why this can be a frustrating project - often these goals won't be encountered again until the next performance review cycle, and sometimes there's no tangible strategy to achieve them.
My current organisation is much smaller, so we don't have as much scaffolding, but it reminded me of another concept that we covered a couple of times in the MBA; that of SMART goals. We were told at the time that the MBA expects a bit more from goal setting, so instead of SMART, we have a bigger acronym.
In Executive Blueprint (the first subject), we were encouraged to write goals that are SMART+, and then also to have SMART+ steps to achieve them.
Specific (in what you want to achieve, and then how)
Measurable (clear indicators as to whether the goal has been achieved, and whether the steps have been taken)
Achievable (compatible with other goals, and you have the resources to achieve, and make progress toward them, given your environment's constraints)
Relevant (Aligned with your broader goals, values and priorities and the steps are aligned to the goal)
Time Bound (there's a deadline, and each step is part of a timeline)
plus - positively framed in its wording: something to do, not something to avoid.
At the time, we were also told that the goals should be stretching: not too easy, not impossible. Reading a bit further on this, you can see that people actually feel better with these stretch goals, enjoying the challenge and sense of accomplishment that goes with them.
Then in the subject on managing people and organisations, the acronym was extended to SMARTER+, with the new letter definitions as E = Ethical, and the second R = recorded and resourced, while + absorbs both "challenging" and "positively framed". This is to make sure the goals you're setting for yourself are aligned with ethical practices, and that there's a process in place for making sure that the goals can be achieved, and this achievement will be tracked.
When it comes time to write your goals, after you've had a first attempt, it's a good process to go through each step in reviewing both your goals, and the completion steps, to make sure they tick all the boxes: this will make your goals more effective. You could start with this blog post to check the SMART aspect, and then extend out and check the others.
Have you set yourself a goal that you've been really happy with? Hit reply and tell me about it!
Dave.
Work. Study. Dad.