Professional Development

Goal Setting the SMART Way

"By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands — your own." --Mark Victor Hansen

Goal Setting involves setting clear, concise and time targeted objectives. Additionally, it is an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that all parties involved are clearly aware of what is expected from them, if an objective is to be achieved. Merriam-Webster OnLine defines a goal as "the end toward which effort is directed." Goals may be either short or long term. Long term goals can take months or years to achieve, while short term goals are reachable in minutes or hours. Short term goals are often a stop along the way to our long term goals. Despite the length or type, the common factor in setting all goals is the desire to achieve them.

Okay....the point of setting goals is to achieve them, but how do we know what kind of goals to set? It does you no good to go to the trouble of calling meetings, identifying the needs of your organization, and wasting valuable time and resources, only to end up with goals that aren't acted on or completed. Unfortunately, this scenario describes what far too many of us do with our time. Consequently, we believe the best goals are S.M.A.R.T. goals. A handy acronym for the five characteristics of well-designed goals, S.M.A.R.T. means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-sensitive. S.M.A.R.T. goals make for smart organizations.

  • Specific: Goals must be clear and unambiguous; vagaries and platitudes have no place in goal setting. When goals are specific, they tell us exactly what is expected, when, and how much. Because the goals are specific, you can easily measure your progress toward their completion.
  • Measurable: What good is a goal that you can't measure? If your goals are not measurable, you never know whether you are making progress toward their successful completion. Not only that, but it's tough for you to stay motivated to complete your goals when you have no milestones to indicate progress.
  • Attainable: Goals must be realistic and attainable by average standards. The best goals require us to stretch a bit to achieve them, but they aren't extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance. Goals that are set too high or too low become meaningless, and we naturally come to ignore them.
  • Relevant: Goals must be an important tool in the grand scheme of reaching your vision and mission. You may have heard that 80 percent of worker productivity comes from only 20 percent of their activities. You can guess where the other 80 percent of work activity ends up! This relationship comes from Pareto's 80/20 rule. This rule, which states that 80 percent of the wealth of most countries is held by only 20 of the population, has been applied to many other fields since its discovery. Relevant goals address the 20 percent of worker activities that has such a great impact on performance and brings your organization closer to its vision.
  • Time-bound: Goals must have starting points, ending points, and fixed durations. Commitment to deadlines helps us to focus our efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. Goals without deadlines or schedules for completion tend to be overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization.

The goals of The Network are to challenge you to think deeply, encourage you to dream greatly, and ultimately, to inspire you to take action immediately! Be sure to spend some reflection time this week to make sure your goals fit the S.M.A.R.T. parameters. Diana Scharf Hunt once said that "Goals are dreams with deadlines." By developing S.M.A.R.T. goals, you can recognize your dreams and ensure the evolution of your organization and its members. TIPS FOR ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS.....