SMART Goals: What They Are, Why They Are So Valuable (and why so many struggle with them)
May 25th, 2007
I talk a lot with our clients about SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon, Realistic, and Time-bound steps toward fulfilling their strategic plans. I do this so frequently because my experience is that the best way to facilitate (and track) progress of strategic plans in meaningful and consistent ways is to develop SMART goals. Most people agree with me – and a few even attempt to set SMART goals once in awhile – but most of the time I find that people struggle with SMART goal development (even those who truly believe in their value and actually spend time attempting to set them).
For example, I recently had someone put forth the following as a SMART goal in one of our sessions: ”treat every customer with respect – starting today.” I explained that although this is a very good idea (I certainly will never argue with treating all customers in a respectful way), it is an example of a very poor SMART goal. That is because it is neither Specific (”respect” could mean a firm handshake to me, but it might mean offering someone coffee every time they come into the office to you) nor Measurable (I can’t measure “respect” – on the other hand, I can measure, for example, how often someone shakes a hand or offers coffee).
Because I’ve found that so many well-intentioned individuals struggle with the concept of SMART goal-setting, I thought I’d write a few observations about this and my experience of the impact of truly SMART goals on teams and organizations (along with families and friendships as well):
- My experience is that most people who attempt to develop SMART goals typically wind up with a combination of what we call “good ideas” and SMART goals – with good ideas normally outnumbering true SMART goals at about a 5 to 1 ratio. Most people believe that goals like “treat the customer with respect” are SMART goals . . . and fail to break good ideas like this one into truly SMART goals (goals like “call every client Mr. or Ms. unless otherwise instructed, beginning today” or “great every customer with a handshake and a smile”).
- My experience is that “grinding” good ideas into true SMART goals can do 4 things for a team: (a) help all team members to be more clear about what it is they should do before they begin doing it – a sort of “measure twice, cut once” approach to strategic and tactical planning. This clarity can greatly reduce the number of “re-do’s” in an organization, and (b) give everyone a clearer path toward bringing good ideas into reality – SMART goals leave nothing to the imagination in terms of how to go about getting things done, (c) clarify what to say “no” to while pursuing their ideas (critical to increasing focus and decreasing time-related obstacles to making good ideas a reality), and (d) provide a better sense of when good ideas are actually brought into reality (instead of having to guess about how well a strategic plan is moving forward).
- Since SMART goal-setting typically takes more time and energy than good idea generation does, we recommend that leaders ask their employees to develop SMART goals only when: (a) leaders feel like they need clarity regarding what an employee is going to do (usually most important if the good idea is central to success or is going to take a lot of money to “re-do” if not done right) AND/OR (b) leaders feel as though a good idea is not being manifested quickly enough or at a level of quality that is satisfying to them (by their nature, SMART goals provide more clarity regarding how to make a good idea happen more quickly and/or occur at a higher level of quality).
- Having said that, if a leader is absolutely SURE that a good idea is either not important enough to grind into SMART goals OR isn’t worth bringing into reality, we normally ask that leader to consider whether or not that idea truly needs to be pursued within their organization at all (or, whether it truly is a “good” idea for their team at the present time). We’ve observed teams wasting a lot of precious time pursuing ideas that aren’t really truly valuable to their team – which can result in lowered motivation and less time to pursue all kinds of truly good ideas.
Certainly, there are times when leaders have such a clear consensus with their employees about a good idea that SMART goal-setting is not necessary. For example, after years of working with my associate, Brian Mistler, I have a good idea of what to expect when I ask him to write a note to a client that I feel could use some assistence with implementing an effective reward system for his team. I don’t need to develop SMART goals for that good idea, because I’ve come to know what sort of note Brian will write . However, we’ve found this level of consensus to be the exception rather than the rule. Very frequently, a good amount of time, energy, and money is wasted having to “re-do” good ideas that were not ground into SMART goals.
A FINAL NOTE ON SMART GOALS: SMART goal development is, in my experience, both challenging and rewarding. Like laying down blueprints before you build a house, it is often difficult to wait patiently as the plan develops. However, like good blueprints, SMART goals can save a lot of heartache and confusion if done consistently well (can you imagine trying to build a home without a blueprint – nearly impossible and almost always foolish!). In order to help people practice developing some SMART goals, we’ve developed an “Online SMART Goal Coaching System.” For a complimentary sample of this system, click here.
Article Filed under: Business Excellence, Personal Effectiveness
SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon, Realistic, and Time-bound.
In my experience, if you genuinely have these 5 factors, stuff happens. I’d like to say more than that, and yet it’s that simple.
Add to it alignment with your mission, and get your priorities strait, and the right stuff happens very quickly. Organizations get to successful implantation without the delays, confusion, and other headaches companies and individuals often deal with trying to plan and execute.
I would also like to add that I have found that one of the most important factors for highly effective TEAMS — is setting clear RR&E (roles, responsibilities and expectations) — and SMART goals for the team. This clarity around the team functions and outcomes is what takes a “workgroup” and elevates them to a true High Performance Team. Unfortunately, only about 10% or less of teams ever do the work necessary to get this sort of clarity and develop effective SMART team goals.
For years our organization has struggled to meet all of the goals on our strategic plan. Some years have been more successful than others, but often the goals that were met were not met on time and there always seemed to be at least an item or two that was completely neglected.
This year we decided to take a new approach to strategic planning and have developed SMART goals for each of our strategic objectives. While it was challenging to develop our SMART goals, each of the members of our team now have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. I have already noted that team members are making progress toward their goals.
After working through this process I can now honestly say that a big part of our problem in that past was that many of our objectives were too vague.
Dr. Higely and his team has been of great assistance during this process.
I can’t wait to see where we are 6 months from now. I am confident we will be well on our way to meeting each of our goals and on time.
Stacie L. Buck, RHIA, CCS-P, LHRM, RCC
President, Florida Health Information Management Association
http://www.fhima.org
Glad you enjoyed the SMART Goal-centered training, Stacie – I’m excited to watch the results!
SMART goals I feel are vital to team success and success in life. I have actually started implementing smart goals into my own relationships and into my own personal projects. Of course getting my team to agree upon a goal is easy, because it is only me on the team. At night when I lay down to go to be I think to myself, “OK what do I need to do tomorrow the next week and the next month,” so then I either create a smart goal or I review the one I have.
If someone is reading this and is having a difficult time coming up with smart goals or how to create a smart goal for a “good idea” I have a simple way which helps me greatly. First I think ok what is the smart goal in general. For example; I am going to make a cake for my friends birthday on Saturday and it is Monday. I make that into a smart goal. The smart goal would go something like this. S-Make a chocolate cake with chocolate icing using a specific brand for the cake mix and icing. M-Have one cake mix box and icing container. A- I agree with making a cake. R- It is realistic for me to be able to create a cake. T- Have the cake made by Saturday by five o’clock.Then I would create a separate smart goal for each ingredient. I would create a smart goal for getting the eggs by a specific date, and every other ingredient I needed. Creating on general smart goal and then creating a smart goal for each different aspect of getting the goal done could be a useful tool in getting your “good idea” accomplished.
Jonathon,
Your scenerio above is an excellent sample of how to develop both SMART Goals and SMART sub-goals. Thank you for sharing it!
SMART goals are a very useful tool for any individual, small group or team, or large organization. I have been learning about SMART goals over the past few months. In the beginning, my role was to critique my employee’s SMART goals. Eventually I had to begin creating my own SMART goals. As I look back at the process, I am glad that I was able to do it in that order. I can certainly say that it is much easier to determine if a goal is SMART or not, then to come up with your own SMART goals. But, the more I was able to decipher between SMART goals and not so SMART goals, the easier it became to form my own SMART goals. This may be an exercise to do with a group that is new to SMART goals. Have them judge whether a goal is truly Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon, Realistic, and Time bound. I believe when you are able to identify SMART goals, it will assist in the proper formation of them. I agree with Dr. Higley that it can be a very difficult and sometimes boring stage of reaching your missions, but it is well worth it once you start to see your goals become accomplished, I believe my group has experienced that feeling of SMART goal accomplishment over the past week, as they have been able to complete some of their activities. I don’t think, but I know- We couldn’t have done it without our SMART goals!
Jessica,
It’s been fun watching your team benefit from SMART Goal development – you have been a major force in making this happen. Bravo!
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