Want to ensure that you end up achieving the desired results? Do an effective job of setting goals up front. This truism has been recommended for centuries, but structure and discipline are required to make it work. Building on the familiar SMART advice for goal setting, we would like to offer a fresh acronm: ACT BEST. ACT BEST strategies can be applied to yourself as well as those around you.
Many years ago, Life Magazine ran a story about a man who, early in his life, had made a list of some 500 goals he wanted to achieve over the course of his life. Clearly an eccentric and adventurous fellow, the list included such goals as visiting the Taj Mahal and parachuting from an airplane. The reason the story was newsworthy, other than the fact that many of the goals were particularly colorful, was that the man had actually achieved most of them. The story made for an engaging portrait of an obsession. As we reflect on the story today, it reminds us of the power of goal setting.
The very practical idea that goals beget results is not new. As Euripides, the 5th century BC Greek tragedian, bemoaned, "A bad beginning makes a bad ending." According to Seneca, the 1st century AD Roman statesman, "Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind." And, in the priceless words of John Heywood, 16th century collector of marvelous English colloquial sayings, "Look ere ye leape." In ancient times as well as modern, it has always been self-evident that goals are necessary to provide purpose and direction to activity, and that activity without a goal gets you nowhere.
Contemporary organizational research lends quantitative respectability to the notion that goal setting is useful. In a roundup of research on goal-setting programs, it was found that companies that introduced systematic goal-setting programs enjoyed an average 39% increase in productivity. Interestingly, the size of the benefit varied dramatically among the companies with the key differentiating factor being the amount of management support. In those companies where top management lent strong support to the goal-setting initiative, there was an average 57% increase in productivity while in those companies where there was little top-management support, the increase was a paltry 6%.
So what practical advice is there for individuals who want to take advantage of the potential power that lies within the goal-setting practice? What exactly is the most effective goal-setting practice?
For years, trainers have taught the SMART approach to setting goals. Goals, the advice goes, should be specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time- and resource-constrained. Although this is sound advice and is easy to remember, people still find the act of goal setting to be rather difficult. We have found that by providing a bit more structure, it’s easier to set goals and -- most importantly -- to follow through on them.
We’d like to offer a fresh acronym: ACT BEST. In order to ACT BEST yourself, and to have the individuals you manage ACT at their BEST, apply the following goal-setting tips.
Align:
Exactly what goals should you set? It’s often taken for granted that people know what they’re supposed to be working on. Better to be explicit than to make such an assumption. The goals individuals are directing their energies toward achieving ought to be aligned with the company’s strategic objectives and consistent with the corporate mission and vision.
So … line up your goals with those of your immediate supervisor and, in turn, your company. Tie in your efforts to the higher purpose. And, if you have direct reports, make sure their goals are linked with, and supportive of, yours. The overriding question to be asked is, "What needs to be achieved?" not "What do I want to do?"
Coordinate:
Almost everyone has experienced what happens when there is an absence of coordination. The image that comes most readily to mind is riding the bumper cars at an amusement park. There’s a lot of energy being expended, but everyone seems to be heading in different, incompatible, and competing directions. Just as you think you have a clear path ahead, someone slams you from the side, and neither of you were expecting the collision. Similarly, goals can put people on a collision course and waste valuable resources, not to mention putting a strain on inter-group relations.
Time:
Virtually every goal will have a time element associated with it. And it needs to be specified. For some goals, the time element will be a deadline. For example, if you’re accountable for completing the Wormwood project, there’s probably a "drop-dead" date associated with it -- the client must have the project completed and in hand by a certain date.
Other goals may not have a deadline but rather have expectations that certain criteria will be met on a daily basis. For example, a receptionist would have as a key responsibility to effectively handle calls and visitors. There’s no deadline, in that you aren’t shooting for a specific completion date after which you will wash your hands of that goal and move on to other things. Rather, you are continuously working on achieving the goal, which in effect gets continuously reset.
Whether a goal is associated with a project (and has a finishing date or a deadline) or with a key job responsibility (and is never ending), you may want to establish mileposts. Mileposts can provide checkpoints along the way to ensure that the goal is on track.
Break Apart:
It is easy to get overwhelmed by a goal that is too large for you to get your arms around. The age-old advice here (and sound advice it is) is to break apart the big, indigestible goal and work with its manageable parts. This works whether you are a manager or an individual contributor.
Managers use this approach to ensure that major areas they are accountable for are divvied up and properly apportioned to their direct reports. Hence, sales managers take their "Increase district sales" goals, carve them up, and delegate the pieces to their sales reps. The project leader on the Wormwood account similarly carves up the essential pieces of the project and empowers members of the project team to make the necessary component contributions.
This is an efficient way to "cascade" goals out through the organization. At the top, strategic objectives are basically carved up into manageable pieces and delegated, and these manageable pieces are in turn carved up and delegated further. Breaking apart, combined with alignment, helps ensure that everyone is productively engaged, directing their energies in the appropriate directions.
Evaluate:
How do you know if you have achieved the goal? This is a matter of measurement. The ideal is to have some kind of yardstick against which you (and others) can measure your progress, and to have a notch on that yardstick that represents successful goal achievement. You need to establish the evaluation criteria, and the criteria ought to be agreed upon at the time the goal is set.
Sometimes evaluation criteria are pretty straightforward, as may be the case with a sales quota. And sometimes a single criterion is all that is needed, as in "Book $2 million in signed contracts." Often, however, multiple criteria are appropriate. Consider the Wormwood project where it might be necessary to define several criteria, such as the level of client satisfaction, the profit margin to be achieved, and the quality standards that the project’s output must satisfy.
Support:
Recall the statistics concerning the difference between goal-setting programs that are supported by management vs. those that aren’t. If you are in a position (i.e., manager) to give support, do so! (Given the dramatic difference in outcome, this seems like a no-brainer.)
Support can consist of freeing up resources, helping to overcome obstacles, providing greater clarity to the goal itself. Support can also mean setting goals yourself, which has the effect of providing clear goals for your direct reports to align their goals with. If you are not in a position to give support (you’re not a manager), then seek it whenever you need it. If your manager doesn’t give it, align your goals with what your manager’s goals should be, or with your next-level manager’s goals. Be resourceful and seek support from other sources.
Track:
Goals change … usually within days of having been set. They need to be updated periodically. As time passes, you also make progress against a goal. That progress needs to be noted … also periodically.
This process of revising, updating, and tracking goals suggests an additional attribute of an effective goal that is usually not spoken out loud. That dark secret is that goals ought to be kept visible. If what is out of sight is out of mind, then goals that are tucked away in a drawer will have very little power to direct and energize.
By setting your goals within the ACT BEST structure, you will have raised the chances that they will beget organizationally desired results.
If this sounds rather cold and clinical, you’re probably right. Anything so rational and passionless is bound to account for no more than about half the total effect you’re trying to achieve. For the other half, let’s look back to that eccentric fellow with the 500 life goals. We think it’s safe to say that this man got results not just by setting goals the right way, but by setting the goals and then persevering in their achievement. Good old-fashioned self-discipline and genuine, from-the-inside-out desire were the additional critical ingredients.
About the Author: Dr. Kaneez Fatima Sadriwala M.com, Phd. has16 yrs of experience split between academics and industry
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