January is a time for new beginnings and new goals.
According to a new YouGov poll, roughly one-third of Americans set at least one goal or New Year’s resolution. Confidence is sky-high. Previous surveys have found that 87% of goal-setters are confident they will keep their resolutions. However, evidence shows less than 7% of people typically do. How come?
The truth is goal setting has become a lost art that’s seldom taught at home, in school, or in the workplace. Companies are quick to ask employees for their goals, but quality instruction is rarely provided.
What makes a good goal or resolution? A four-decade-old method forged by the former head of corporate planning for the Washington Water Power Company offers some smart lessons.
Specific
According to George T. Doran, the author of the iconic S.M.A.R.T. goals theory, setting good goals starts with specificity.
Often our goals are far too ambiguous. This can stem from a lack of training or education around proper goal setting to outright fear. I once heard someone say, half-jokingly, that they never set goals so they will never be disappointed if they miss them. How disappointing indeed!
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Writing specific goals requires the goal-setter to be as granular as possible. “I want 2024 to be the best year in our company’s history” is an excellent example of an execrable goal. “This year, our sales team will increase business-to-consumer sales by 15% percent compared to last year,” is significantly better. It tells you: who are the players, what’s at stake, what needs to be achieved, and by what time.
Measurable
In the book “Measure What Matters” author John Doerr shares some excellent goal setting advice from one of the best managers ever, former Intel CEO Andy Grove. The method is called OKRs, which is short for “Objectives and Key Results.”
Doerr describes good objectives as “inspiration and far horizons” and key results as “earthbound and metric-driven.” We’ll get to the second part of that statement in a minute. But first, it’s important to set goals that are actually measurable. After all, how will you know if you’ve hit a goal if you don’t have any assessment behind it?
Sometimes your goals will have quantifiable results that indicate you’ve achieved success. You either increased your yearly business-to-consumer sales by your intended percentage or you didn’t. However, not all goals will be easily measured.
That is why your goals should also contain markers or milestones to assess progress. For example, if your goal is to implement a new CRM platform in 2024, some measurable steps may include whether you issued a request for proposal, demoed different platforms, chose a vendor, conducted employee training sessions, and transferred all existing data from the old system to the new one.
The more you can measure, the easier it will be to objectively evaluate your performance.
Assignable
A big goal setting no-no is forgetting to assign people specific tasks. For every goal, you should tag a specific department or person(s) who will advance that goal.
The responsibility assignment matrix, which is sometimes called the RACI matrix, is great for this. It stands for responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. Each goal should have the person who is responsible, usually an executive leader or a vice president, a person who is accountable and will execute the task, a person who is consulted and must weigh in, and finally, those who must be informed.
This exercise isn’t designed to put employees on blast. It’s designed to give employees clear expectations—a vital key to achieving big goals.
Realistic
Goal setting should be a motivating, not demotivating exercise. It should be fun to organize, challenge, and inspire yourself and others. It’s deflating to choose goals that are either so low you could trip over them or so high that even Shaquille O'Neal can’t reach them.
Your goals should reflect your current resources. If you don’t have an unlimited budget or unlimited staff, don’t select goals that require unlimited money or staff time.
At (RED), the organization that I lead, we review our goals throughout the year–and we color-code them along the way. Green means we’ve achieved the goal. Yellow means we’re on track. And red means we’re behind. At the end of the year, a sea of green doesn’t necessarily mean success.
Leaders must destigmatize goal setting and assessment. If you’re hitting every goal, you’re not aiming high enough.
Time-Related
It’s important to document the timeframe in which you will achieve your goals. If a goal is open ended, you’re much less likely to take it seriously. Deadlines give goals urgency, they provide motivation and something to work towards.
Knowing how long it will take to complete a goal will help you establish regular progress assessments. Some teams review their goals quarterly or monthly. I’ve even seen some managers ask for daily goals from employees which admittedly feels excessive, even for this goal-setting enthusiast.
Regardless of your cadence, the point is this: Your goals must have an end date and you should check them regularly to assess your progress.
Why It Matters
We all have objectives we want to achieve. Taking the time to systematically document and review your goals can help transform them into reality. The problem with goal setting is rarely a lack of ambition, but rather a lack of education.
“The fact is that most managers still don’t know what objectives are and how they can be written,” Doran wrote some forty years ago. “It is, therefore, the job of top management to communicate to its executives how objectives are set, how objectives are written, and, of course, the meaning of the word objective within an organization.”
As you pick up the pen to write your 2024 goals, remember to do as Doran and be S.M.A.R.T.
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