“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.”

Yogie Berra

It’s January February (Yes, I began writing this article in January and got pulled away by other ideas, and yes, I am openly sharing that fact with you on purpose patient reader), and if you are like me you may still be thinking about your goals for the year. Goals for your family, your life, your business, your team, your department, your enterprise… So many goals! Maybe you’ve already got them drafted for the year. Maybe you’ve just gotten as far as thinking about thinking about them. Regardless of where you are in the process, I invite you to consider that you may be able to do better.

A sometimes lovely/sometimes obnoxious component of my base psychological build is a tendency to be hyper-utilitarian. At my core I want everything to have a purpose and even more I want everything to fulfill its designated purpose. I don’t like a bunch of physical stuff around, I don’t like philosophy or theory which sounds good and looks good but can’t be applied, and I despise short-form content bursting with worn out platitudes and bromides which may feel good to read and change nothing in my world. I also can’t stand “perfectly” written goals that make no difference to anyone and am doubly heartbroken by these because powerful goals can change everything! So, from that place I invite you to join me in taking a ruthlessly pragmatic review of your goals for this year. Whether you choose your business goals, personal goals, or both let’s start with deeply contemplating these questions:

• Do your goals matter? I mean actually matter?
  • Do they matter to you?
  • To your partners, leaders, and employees?
• Do your goals help you make decisions?
• Would you be proud to share them with your family, friends, or customers?
• If you shared your goals with someone outside your immediate circle, would they be able to understand them without significant explanation?

Spellcheck for Goal Setting

If you’ve spent time in any corporate environment, you have likely been exposed to some version of the S.M.A.R.T. framework for goal setting. I know, collective eyeroll and deep sigh. I am right there with you, I promise. Please stick with me for a moment. I have two reasons for inviting you to reexamine this goal-setting tool:

1. There is a good chance that the version of it to which you have been exposed was misstated, misinterpreted, and misunderstood. More on this later.
2. There is an even better chance that you were led to believe this framework was all you needed, and if you could just shoehorn what you wanted to accomplish into the perfect textbook format all your dreams would come true. Maybe after days and weeks of painful wordsmithing you finally got it “right” and promptly shoved your goals into the proverbial drawer never to see them again for the rest of the year. Failure to make our goals deeply meaningful and sage, failing to establish a consistent cadence of check in on progress with ourselves and others, and stopping short of a clear and flexible plan of action are key contributors to this death by inattention. This article will address the first of these goal killing obstacles.

So, we are going to do a tiny bit of reframing to get us on the same page. The S.M.A.R.T. framework on its own will deliver you useful goals no more than owning a word processor with spellcheck will write a great novel for you. It is only useful in ensuring you have captured the necessary thinking in an actionable format which can be communicated with others. Let’s align on the terms of the framework:

Specific: What is the plain language outcome which will exist in the future and does not exist today? Imagine you have been wildly successful, and you are standing in the midst of that future success. If you were to look around, what’s different? Paint the picture in such a way someone who isn’t you can also see it just by reading or hearing the words.

Measurable: How can you measure progress toward the outcome you’ve defined? How will you know you are winning or have won? You should be able to identify both leading and lagging indicators of whether you are moving in the right direction. If you are struggling to identify the measures, your outcome is likely not yet specific enough. Nearly any properly defined change can be measured, and in many cases that measurement is only possible if the data needs and baselines are established in advance. I know for some folks this detail heavy part can be challenging (I’m one of you!), and you will be so grateful you did it later!

Attainable: Can you realistically with the resources you have achieve the outcome you have defined? How much luck will be required: a little bit (which might make it a good stretch), or a lot? Try back-casting from the deadline for the outcome and ask yourself what would need to happen between where you are and where you want to be. If the vast majority of what needs to happen is within your control or influence and can be reasonably done, you are on the right track. This is not to say your goals should be easy! To the contrary, if your goal is likely to be accomplished without much change in effort or direction then it isn’t a “goal” it’s just “what’s likely to happen”. There’s nothing wrong with maintaining what is good. From what I’ve seen much of both life and business is simply maintaining (or not messing up) what is good. That’s just not a goal, it’s day to day operations. Goals are about change, and change is what keeps us motivated.

Relevant (not Realistic!): This one is continually misstated as realistic and drives me insane. Realistic and attainable are synonymous and the misstatement often causes folks to lose faith in the framework. This may well be the most important question in the framework. Is the outcome in crystal clear alignment with your and/or your organization’s values, mission, and long-term vision? Is this outcome among the things that if “this doesn’t happen, nothing else that does happen matters?” When you imagine this well-defined change becoming a reality, how do you feel in your mind and body? Does your heart rate speed up a bit with positive anticipation? Keep refining until you get to the core of the outcome that matters.

Time-defined: A goal without a deadline is just a dream and quite easily morphs into being a nightmare. If the goal you are considering is a multi-year endeavor, that’s totally great and I encourage you to break it into smaller annual or even semi-annual component goals. This is the magic of time defined goals: we thrive on progress! Every acknowledged tiny step forward toward our desired state feeds our sense of mastery and thereby delivers a critical fuel to our intrinsic motivation.

As a place to start and a screening mechanism for baseline completeness, the S.M.A.R.T. framework can be an incredibly valuable tool in business and life. It is, though, only the beginning of crafting a meaningful, powerful goal and the plan to achieve it.

The S.M.A.R.T. framework on its own will deliver you useful goals no more than owning a word processor with spellcheck will write a great novel for you.

Now your goals are smart. Are they sage?

Let me ease your mind straight away and tell you I am not introducing a new acronym, here. When I say sage, I mean wise, prudent, and based on sound judgment.  Have you considered all the angles?

• What might be the second and third order consequences of being successful in your goal? A goal achieved is a change made, and very few changes happen in a vacuum. What other components of the system of your life or business are likely to be touched by this change? What tradeoffs might you have to make in this new reality, and will you be able to make them and stay aligned to what you really want?
• What will you potentially have to give up in order to pursue and achieve this goal? Explore beyond the obvious, what else could potentially come in conflict with your pursuit? When conflict arises, how are you going to work it out? What won’t you sell out on to achieve this goal? What are your non-negotiables?
• You’ve done a lot of reflection and revision at this point and have thought quite deeply about this goal. Given what you now know and the deeper perspective you now have, is this what you really want? Seriously, it’s decision time, do you want this? If the answer isn’t immediately “Heck yeah I want this!” I’d encourage you to reflect a bit more and go after what you really want.
• What are your warning lights, red lines, and escape paths? Being all in on a goal does not mean going down with the ship. As you develop your measures, focus not only on those which will indicate you are making forward progress but also on those which will indicate there may be trouble brewing (warning lights). Once you’ve identified your warning light metrics, identify the points in that measurement system which you consider out of bounds (red lines). With your red lines clearly articulated, think through each one and imagine it has been crossed, what is your exit strategy from the goal given that reality (escape paths)? For each escape path, what are the costs and losses you can expect to incur, and how might you work it out?
• All of this considered and weighed in the balance, is the pursuit of this goal the best and highest use of your time, treasure, and resources? If “YES”, it’s time to proceed to action planning!

Show Don’t Tell: Examples

A Business Example:

Dunce Goal: Increase customer contact to grow sales by 15%

Why is it a Dunce Goal?: I would classify this that way for several reasons:

1. It isn’t a goal. The first half “Increase customer contact” is a non-specific action. The second half could serve as a lagging measure on the path toward a true goal and is not a goal in and of itself.
2. No one cares. Seriously, no one is going to care about this goal. Of course, you want to grow sales! Everyone wants to grow sales! It’s like saying “My goal is to breathe!” This goal cries out for a deeper dive into “Why? Then, Why? Then, Why?” and so on until something meaningful is found underneath it.
3. This goal cannot really be used for guidance in decision-making. The question “Will it grow sales?” doesn’t do much to narrow the field of available options and as a matter of fact may well incentivize behavior which is bad for the business long-term.
4. Opening the goal with a narrowly defined action immediately cuts off any potential creativity which might be inspired by a well-crafted goal around how that goal may be achieved. Better goals are hyper-specific in the outcome and leave plenty of space for innovation in how that outcome will be made real.

SMART Goal: We will increase customer use of multiple services through improved digital and social media experience and value add. We will use our current networks and platforms augmented with affordable third-party support to generate up to 15% in additional sales by year end which is what our current resources can deliver with quality. Achieving this goal will drive customer satisfaction and retention, improve resource utilization efficiency, and create additional capital for investment in future platform improvements. Our key leading measures will be customer leads for additional services, digital and social click through, and customer satisfaction. Our key lagging measures will be customer adoption of additional services, sales growth, and net revenue growth.

Sage Goal Additions:

• Added setup and service volumes for new services to customers will represent an evolving change throughout the year in the time capacity available to managers and staff for working on special and departmental projects. This likelihood will need to be accounted for in workforce planning, and many projects may need to be postponed or cancelled.
• This effort may come into conflict with new customer acquisition work this year as peaks in existing customer demand may prove unpredictable and require unanticipated volumes of capacity. While growth in new customers remains important, the satisfaction of our existing customers is a promise made and we will not break that promise. Should conflict arise, existing customer service and support is the priority.
• Our employees are the heart of our ability to deliver great experiences to our customers, and as such their experience is paramount. Employee satisfaction and work balance will be our leading warning light measured weekly, and should the key measures cross their respective thresholds efforts will be slowed and reevaluated until the volume of change and work becomes manageable once more. Should it be discovered that additional growth in customer cross sell is untenable at current staffing, all efforts toward continued growth will be suspended until additional staff can be hired and fully trained or other remediation becomes available.
•  Customer satisfaction will be our second warning light. Should customer satisfaction dip below threshold levels….
• Given our mission to transform the lives of our customers through our suite of services, our commitment to the deep satisfaction and trust of our employees, and our focus on the 3 year evolution of our platform this is the best and highest use of all time, treasure and resources available for us at this time.

A Life Example:

Dunce Goal: Exercise 3 times per week to lose 15 pounds.

Why is it a Dunce Goal?: I have similar issues to the business example, and by the way I pulled both these examples of “goals” from respectable sources, and they were given as “Good examples”:

1. In addition to not being a goal, even if it were it isn’t going to work. You won’t care, not over the long term. Again, WHY do you want to lose 15 pounds? What is the real outcome? To fit in your old jeans? Ok, WHY? To feel confident in your body? Ok, what else? To have the energy levels you had when you wore those jeans? Ok…
2. There is no indication in this statement of the goal supporting the attainability of either target metric identified. What might be the challenges and how will they be overcome? How will you move past the ways you are most likely to sabotage the plan? What will be the received rewards of the wins along the way that will maintain the motivation through felt increasing mastery?

SMART Goal: I will have a healthy more energetic body and mind through increased physical activity, healthy diet, and intentional self-care. I will use the rowing machine I have in the basement, daily walks with the dog, morning meditation with my kids, and produce from the local farmers market to aid me in this. Achieving this goal will ease the pain in my joints and feet, boost my energy and self-confidence, and increase the joy I experience with my family. My key leading measures will be daily minutes spent in intentional physical activity, morning and evening check ins with myself in my journal about my state of mind, and weekly weigh ins and measurements. My key lagging measures will be pounds and inches lost, test results from my annual physical, and finish time at the charity 5k.

Sage Goal Additions:

• Changes in my shopping, cooking and dietary habits are going to have a big impact on my family as they have become accustomed to the choices I have been making when stocking our pantry. I will mitigate this impact through an initial and ongoing family discussions sharing with them what I am trying to accomplish and why, inviting them to join me in it, and co-creating boundaries so we can all have our needs met.
• I’ve come to love my Wednesday morning stop and chat at the donut shop. And as much as I enjoy spending time with all the folks there, that routine will come in direct conflict with my pursuit of this goal both in the temptation it will offer, and in the time spent. I will bid them all a fond farewell next week and treat everyone to coffee on me in thanks for their friendship.
• I’ve not been very active for the past three years and debilitating myself with injury is a line I will not cross. Therefore, my key warning light will be pain or discomfort in my body (particularly my left hip joint). My red line will be any point where I feel an acute sharp pain during or after an exercise. Should an activity cross the threshold, I will switch to daily light restorative stretching workouts until the sharp pain subsides and more gradually increase intensity. Should this not work, I will consult my doctor. I will not, however, allow discomfort to cause me to give up.
• I long to have the energy and confidence to engage in my life I am certain achievement of this goal will grant me. It is the highest and best use of all the time, energy, and resources I can give it!

Bring in Your People!

You might call them your brain trust, your tribe, your posse, your kitchen cabinet, your Junto. Whatever you call them, they are that group of folks (personal or professional) you can always count on to have wise counsel, share honest perspective, have your back, and want you to win. Connect with these people and share your goal. Ask them first to explain it back to you as they understand it. If their understanding is close to yours, great! If not, you may need to consider some revisioning to make your goal clearer. Then ask them for feedback. Specifically ask them to help you make it more sage. Open up the space for them to challenge your assumptions, callout risks you may not have considered, and push you to stretch a little further. After all, they are the people in your life who help you see where you are strong and capable of more than you thought! If they start asking “How are you going to do it?” then you’ve reached a great point to pause the conversation, because up next is:

Tactics, Action Planning, and Measures

Nicholas Murray Butler said “There are three types of people in this world: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” The heart of making your new goal happen is a considered and flexible plan of tactics and actions to drive the daily progress that leads to your outcome, and measures to help track your progress. The next article in this series will explore that topic in depth. In the meantime, go create better goals!

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