SMARTer Goal Setting Is A Process
The point of formal goals is to facilitate goal-directed behavior. That is, goals are useful because they help leaders direct attention appropriately, they provoke physical action on this focus, they improve time management skills, and they increase persistence (in large part by preventing frustration with the great distance of reaching long-term goals). Most elite athletes display goal-directed behavior much of the time. Still, actually writing goals down, then monitoring and adjusting them using specific guidelines can significantly increase and intensify this behavior.
Goals need to have certain characteristics and meet certain standards to be optimally effective. Diligently meeting these standards is an investment of time and effort; failing to do so can cause goals to hurt performance. Four Harvard Business School professors produced a superb paper about the hazards of goal setting titled Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goals[1]. In it, they show that goals often have unintended side-effects that include a narrow focus that ignores non-goal areas, decreased intrinsic motivation, and distorted risk preferences. It is better to skip goal-setting than to do it without clear guidelines, especially including follow-up monitoring and adjusting. Setting and maintaining optimally effective goals is uncommon. Discipline through the process will ensure that goals have the desired effects.
Written goals are useful (often, exceptionally so) when they are SMART+2:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attractive
- Realistic
- Time-Constrained
+
- Controllable
- Monitored and Adjusted
The most important step is monitoring and adjusting goals so that they stay relevant and maintain a level that is both attractive and realistic. This can be a continual process, but should be done at least once every two weeks.
