Setting your goals for 2019? Retire S.M.A.R.T. and take A.I.M.
We’ve been hearing the term “S.M.A.R.T. goals” for decades. The question is, are our goals any SMARTer than they were when the concept was first introduced? What percentage of the goals you set for yourself, or with your teams, truly meet the suggested criteria, if you still remember what the acronym stands for? In my experience, that percentage is not very high. Why is that? I’ll tell you what I think and then share a much more effective alternative.
What Does S.M.A.R.T. Really Mean?
Some words and phrases simply wear out and lose meaning. We’ve heard the term “S.M.A.R.T” for so many years that we dismiss it as no more than a written goal with a trivial suggestion for measurement. We tend to phrase vague goals in bland terms like “implement the system on time,” or “improve my communications skills.Of course, these goals are “relevant” to someone. But to whom?
Let’s retire the term and get much more specific about what we want from the goal setting process.
A.I.M. to Simplify Your Goal-Setting
It’s time to simplify, focus, and reduce the number of goals. Goal setting should be one of the most exciting times of the year. It’s a chance to clean up our to-do lists, remove noise and distractions, and narrow our focus to what’s critically important.
Consider replacing S.M.A.R.T. with “A.I.M.” I suggest three critical objectives denoted by the acronym:
Objective: Alignment
Is your goal aligned to your key business outcomes? Use the necessary/sufficient test. Is this goal necessary to deliver one or more of our needed outcomes? If we can achieve the outcome without this goal, it’s not aligned. Ask yourself, “Is it sufficient?”, meaning can we achieve one or more of the desired outcomes by meeting only this goal? If not, what other organizational goals are required?
Make sure you clearly define your desired outcomes and communicate them to all levels of the organization. Imagine if every employee, from the boardroom to the shipping dock, could articulate, “These are the key business outcomes we need to deliver this year, and here are the daily, weekly, and monthly actions (in the form of goals) I’m taking to contribute to those outcomes.” That’s what we call getting everyone rowing in the same direction, or as one leader described it, “getting the full weight of the wood behind the arrow!”
Obviously, some roles contribute more directly to these outcomes that others, but all of your employees should be have a line of sight. If you’re wondering if all your employees are capable of articulating this connection, I’d suggest you consider, a) Do you have the right employees? and b) Do they work for the right leaders who should be helping them make these connections? If you really want engaged employees, skip the annual survey and focus on helping them understand how their work contributes to the success of the organization. It’s hard to view your work as meaningful when you’re not clear on why it matters to what the organization is trying to accomplish.
Objective: Impact
Next, I stands for impactful. When we set goals, they should represent the next best actions we can take to deliver our key business outcomes. If your organization requires employees to create a certain number of goals, please reconsider. If I can think of one or two goals that solidly contribute to our key outcomes, what will I do if I’m expected to come up with three more? Of course, I will start getting creative to fill in the form. These additional goals compete, conflict and distract from the important ones. These are the type of goals that undoubtedly will make someone ask in August, “Why are we working on this anyhow?” If the best answer is, “It’s my goal or my boss’ goal,” please do your organization a favor and kill it!
Objective: Measurability
Finally, we need a goal to be measurable. The right metrics should give us enough evidence to prove in a court of law that it was done, done well, on time, at the expected cost and perhaps most importantly, that it had the desired effect we were expecting. If the best measure you can come up with is to say whether it was done or not (an activity), this is a strong indication you should refer back to the line in the last paragraph – kill it.
Focus on the Critical, Eliminate the Noise
In summary, use your goal-setting process to focus the organization on the most critical actions and eliminate anything else that’s not worth doing. These might be good ideas, nice things to do, something you’ve always dreamed of doing, something that was important two years ago that you’ve never followed through on, things most companies do because they are “best practices,” some executive’s pet project or possibly worst of all, the only thing we can think of for Myron to do. Unless it’s something required by law or the regulators (make sure it really is), these are all opportunities to eliminate noise and distractions so you can focus more intently on the most meaningful work.
As you finalize your 2019 goals, make this year an inflection point. For every goal, ask yourself these three simple questions:
Does this goal clearly align to the outcomes that matter most?
Of all the things we could do, is this the most Impactful way to achieve our key business outcomes?
Is it clear how we will know this goal had the expected, measurable impact on our results?
Regardless of what your internal “performance management” practices or systems ask for, likely S.M.A.R.T., replace with A.I.M to filter your own goals and those of your team to ensure a successful, impactful, and engaging year.
What’s your point of view?