Students Of Success

Everyone - particularly business coaches like me - talks about goal-setting, and so it is surprising that surveys indicate 97 percent of businesspeople do not set them. Of the people who do set them, 97 percent set reactive goals, 2 percent set proactive goals and 1 percent set intention-oriented goals. Guess which ones create the biggest results?

Most people don’t set goals because they have tried before and failed. They set goals to fix today’s problems for a better morning tomorrow. They didn’t ask the question: Why do I want to achieve this goal? If they had, their goal would have been different, achievable and achieved.

A friend of mine said she wanted to lose 10 pounds. Now, there’s a goal designed for failure. I asked her why. She said so she could fit into her clothes well again. That - not losing the weight - is the goal.

You may have been taught to set SMART goals. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Trackable. These are proactive goals like growing your income by 10 percent over last year’s. Again, the question of why is left unasked and unanswered. And another goal is unfulfilled.

Let’s get to intention-oriented goals. These are the goals I want you to set; goals that are visionary, that have a purpose and which look beyond the incremental steps and say where we intend to be at some point in the future.

Instead of growing your income 10 percent, let’s discover why you want the extra money. Perhaps it would allow you to take a three-week trip to Belize, or pay for long-neglected guitar lessons, or help your daughter buy her first home. Those goals are not about the money, they are about what the money will allow you to do. These are intention-oriented goals. You may not know right now how you are going to get there but you know where you want to end up.

Now, you’re going to set up a priority system to help you achieve these goals. This priority system - a sort of “to-do” list on steroids - is based on two questions:
1. What is the best use of my time right now?
2. Will this activity help me achieve one of my goals?

Activities unrelated to your goals need to be delegated, delayed or somehow eliminated from your list. Activities which will help you achieve your goals now can be divided into “A” and “B” categories. You should set your “B” list first. Ask, “can I postpone taking action on this activity?” If the answer is no, then the activity automatically is on the “A” priority list. If the answer is yes, you must ask three more questions to determine if it becomes a “B”.

1. Is this an activity that leads to the accomplishment of a goal?

2. Is this a commitment or a promise?

3. Is this a vital, critical, life-threatening “must do”?

A “yes” to any of these questions and the item goes on the “A” list.

Finally, you rank your “As” and “Bs” 1 through 10. If you have more than 10, you need to find something else to eliminate or delegate. Now, attack the “As”.

Once you make this system a habit, your “to-do” list becomes shorter and you’ll be more effective. And you’ll be on your way to achieving your goals and not just crossing things off your list. It’s all possible, you just have to ask “why?”

Brent Dees, president of Brent Dees Financial, is a small business coach and financial planner who teaches the Focus Four system. He helps business owners in the Carolinas set business and personal goals so they can work less and make more. Brent Dees Financial can be found on the web at http://www.brentdees.com.

Over the years much has been written on the subject of goal setting with most conventional wisdom coming down in favour of the SMART objective setting process.

SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound) has been around since the 1960’s and is used by organisations to create effective objectives for themselves and their staff. In fact the SMART objective setting process is taught on many management training programs as the right way to set objectives in any situation.

There is, however, a slight failing with the whole idea around SMART objectives which is, to be fair, not a problem with the process but the wider context in which goals are set. All too often organisations set objectives for their staff only to find that in the final analysis that very few have been achieved or even attempted.

So, what is the problem with this approach to objectives, and why do they so often fail to capture the imagination of employees? The SMART model is missing two very important elements that will nearly always sabotage the take up of any objectives.

WII-FM

Often when organisations impose objectives on their staff the initial question that will be raised is ‘What’s In It For Me?’ and in fact this is a perfectly valid question. A goal or objective whether at the corporate or personal level must be something that is a personal objective. It needs to be initiated, understood and bought-in to the individual for whom it is a goal.

High level corporate objectives by their very nature are impersonal and as such there is rarely significant buy in from employees. Even objectives that are tied in to personal rewards (such as a bonus) do not have a high buy in factor if they are too impersonal. There needs to be a sense of ‘I can make a difference to this’ at a personal level for it to really be taken up by staff.

It can be often be difficult with corporate objectives around profitability and growth to make these personal, and rightly so. These are corporate, high level objectives and unless an individual is tied in to them in some way (as a shareholder for example) then any attempt to cascade these down to lower levels will fail.

The WII-FM issue is for the most part the highest motivator for an individual and a truly effective goal setting strategy takes this into account.

Fascinating Captain

The other and equally important theme missing from the SMART objective setting process is that of interest. For a goal to be really effective and attained it needs to be interesting, exciting and something the individual can get passionate about.

Too many goals, especially corporate ones, are lacking in the area of being interesting. For example, an objective on quality will only be pursued by someone who believes that quality is of interest, for those people who believe it to be important (but not interesting) they will try to ensure that the quality doesn’t drop but it is unlikely that they will go out of their way to ensure quality improves.

Interest in a subject can be generated through corporate reward, however it is rare that this happens as, like the personal side of objective setting, it is outsise the SMART model.

PRISM - the lighter side of objective setting

The SMART model is good and has served for a long time, however in todays modern society, with vast tranches of the working population becoming dissatisfied with their lot a new approach to coporate oblective setting is required.

The PRISM model covers all 5 points of the old SMART process and adds 2 more. PRISM is an acronym for Personal, Realistic, Interesting, Specific and Measurable.

Does this mean that PRISM objectives are not Achievable and Timebound? Not at all, in the PRISM model for an objective to be truly Realistic by definition it has to be Achievable, if it is not achievable then it isn’t and could never really be realistic.

As for the time element of the objective this is covered by measurable. In a science experiment for something to be measurable it needs a start and an end, in life the same applies, if an objective is to be measured it has to be measured against time as well as any other measure, so in the PRISM model Measurable means against all criteria and not splitting out the time elements.

It’s all Me, Me, Me

The PRISM model doesn’t profess to be the ultimate solution for corporate goal setting woes however the addition of the personal and interest features into the process will add new dimension to the objective setting process and will guarantee that the objective has a considerably higher take up than those set with the SMART model.

Corporate goals do not have to be faceless and force fed onto the workforce, by making any objective Personal to the individual and of Interest (with or without reward) then your chances of actually attaining it will dramatically increase.

So, next time there is a strategy session and the subject of goals appears, just ask yourself 2 questions, ‘What does it do for me?’ and ‘Just how interested am I in this?’, if you can’t answer those then perhaps, just perhaps, you need to rethink your goals.

More information regarding staff performance, the PRISM© Goal Setting System and additional tools for improving organisational management can be found at http://www.achievinggreatness.co.uk

L Stuart Avery 2005 © Achieving Greatness Ltd. All rights reserved.

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L Stuart Avery is the Managing Director of Achieving Greatness Ltd, an organisation dedicated to raising awareness around personal and management behaviours. Achieving Greatness specialises in offering advice and support to organisations going through change intitiatives and looking to enhance the performance of their staff. It provides training courses, facilitiation services and coaching to business leaders on Leadership, Management and Strategy.

Stuart has over 20 years of experience across a wide range of industries including Government, Charities, Retail, Travel, Insurance, IT Services and Logistics.

For more information visit http://www.achievinggreatness.co.uk