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Setting and Attaining Goals: How to Act Best

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.2 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.

The paper would 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 some goal-setting tips.

Setting and Attaining Goals: How to ACT BEST

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 suggest how to ACT BEST when setting and pursuing goals.

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%.1

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.2 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 intergroup relations.

As goals are being established, make them public. Scan others’ goals for opportunities to avoid duplication, minimize counterproductive competition, and achieve synergy. When opportunities to coordinate are discovered, create the appropriate communication channels and checkpoints to ensure that the coordination happens. In other words, find out who else is working on stuff that’s related to what you’re supposed to be working on, talk to them, and agree on how coordination will be achieved.

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.

The Manager’s Role in Setting Goals II: Conducting a Goal Setting Discussion

You’re a manager, your company uses goal setting as a key management tool, and you want to help your direct reports set their goals. In this second part of a two-part series, we describe how a manager can conduct a goal setting discussion.

The first part of this series ended with the following tasks to be completed by the manager and the employees in preparation for a one-on-one discussion of the employee’s goals:

Manager:

o Review company’s top-level objectives

o Identify which of your own goals should be divided up and delegated

o Clarify employees’ key responsibilities and anticipate the goals you would expect them to set to back these responsibilities

o Review the competencies that apply to your direct reports’ positions

o Review any development plans

Employees:

o Understand the top-level objectives and their role in achieving them

o Think about how they contribute to the manager’s organizational goals

o Refresh any goals from the prior performance period supporting key responsibilities

o Draft goals for any major projects

o Identify competencies that are important to achieving the goals

o Think about development needs

Assuming that these tasks are finished, the next step will be to conduct a goal setting discussion where the following tasks are completed:

1. Finalize the employee’s goals for the coming performance period (quarter or year).

2. Agree on the competencies that are most critical to supporting the employee’s goals.

3. Finalize any development plans that are needed to support the competencies and goals.

This article will guide you through these steps by addressing criteria for a successful result, a process for getting there, as well as common problems and their solutions.

What Do Good Goals Look Like?

If you’ve done a good job working with your employee, the results of your discussion should meet these criteria:

Criteria: Comments:

The goals should be results-based Each of the goals should measure the value-added outputs of the job, not just the activities.

The goals should be verifiable Goals should not be vague. There should be a way to verify that the goals have been achieved.

There should be no more than 5-9 goals Too many goals will cause the employee to lose focus.

The goals should be aligned with both the manager's and higher-level goals The employee's individual success should visibly contribute to achieving these higher goals.

The competencies should directly support the goals How to achieve the goals (that is, what competencies are required to be successful) should be as clear to the employee as the goals themselves.

The development plan should specify who should do what by when to improve the employee's competencies Specific activities and new on-the-job behaviors must be detailed if the employee is to have a chance to really improve his/her competencies.

How to Create Goals

There are three ways to create goals:

1. Use the same metric as the higher-level goals

The easiest way to assure alignment is to use the same measure as a higher-level goal.

For instance, a top-level annual dollar sales goal of $5 million, might become a $250,000/year quota for a sales rep.

2. Borrow measurement ideas from other sources

Reviewing measures used by other organizations saves you from “reinventing the wheel.” Asking colleagues for the measures they use or checking online or print sources of measures will save you time.

For instance, accounts receivable might choose to support a top-level profit goal with an evaluation criterion of “no more than 5% of receivables will be over 90 days old,” where the measurement idea of “% receivables over X days old” came from another industry.

3. Develop your own goals and evaluation criteria:

o Ask: "What does our customer need from us? What result do we leave behind that adds value to the customer?"

o When evaluating this result, do we care about quantity, quality, cost, timeliness or some combination of these factors?

o Some goals can be measured numerically: What number could we use to evaluate the quantity, quality, cost, timeliness?

o If a number can’t be used, a descriptive measure should be agreed upon: Who will be able to judge the "goodness" of the result and what factors will the judge evaluate?

o How much of this result represents a good job? If a number can’t be used, what would the judge see or hear that indicates that the result was a good one?

o How can we track progress toward the goal?

For instance, when evaluating a key responsibility of order fulfillment, the pharmaceutical warehouse knows that the sales reps they service need "accurately packed orders" from the warehouse. When evaluating this result, the reps care about a combination of quality and timeliness. The measures of “% perfect orders” and “order turnaround time” might lead to evaluation criteria of “99%-99.5% order accuracy, shipped within 24 hours of receipt of the order.” This can be tracked using the dock’s shipping manifest data.

When evaluating a project goal, a research team leader might decide that one of the results the company needs from her and her team is a “completed research project.” While a budget criterion of “±3% budget variance” and a time criterion of “completed by the end of the 3rd quarter” could adequately measure cost and time, the quality of the work is best described, rather than quantified. Thus the quality criteria might read:

"The marketing and research managers agree that:

o Experimental results are consistent, definitive and interpretable.

o The findings are scientifically novel, suggest new ideas to pursue, or identify a new application of a previous result.

o The team identifies an area of clinical usefulness.

o A more efficient research design wasn’t possible."

Note that the marketing and research managers have been identified as the judges of these descriptive evaluation criteria.

Get-Give-Merge

It is very likely that you and your employees will disagree about the content of their performance plan. Here is a negotiation model that gives you a way to understand the differences between your two separate views and begin to merge them. Using this model will encourage two-way communication and minimize confrontations in your goal discussions.

Get, give, and merge. These three words will cue you to get the employee’s viewpoint, give your own and merge the two views. Here is what we mean by these terms:

o Get – Ask questions and restate what the other person has said, using your own words. Your employee will give you feedback to confirm that your understanding is accurate, or to let you know that you’ve misunderstood.

o Give – Explain your viewpoint in clear language, and then confirm that the other person understood you. You can do this by either asking a question or having the employee restate what you said in his/her own words.

o Merge – Resolve differences between your views and the employee’s views.

While getting and giving are more self-explanatory, merging may be a new concept for some managers. There are four techniques used to merge or resolve differences. Their definitions and examples of each are listed below:

Type of Merge: Definition: Examples:

Agree You agree with the employee's viewpoint or the employee agrees with yours. "You're right, we did forget to have a goal for 'customer satisfaction' on the original list. Let's add it."

Create You and the employee create a totally new alternative that both of you can agree to. "I want you to handle the customers' problems during their call, and you'd like the flexibility of handling them within an hour after the call. We've agreed that on each call, you'll ask the customers when they need an answer, and then you'll meet that mutually agreed-upon deadline."

Meet You and your employee meet on a viewpoint somewhere between yours and the employee's. "You'd like to shoot for 45 and I'd like the standard to be 25, but we'll both agree on 30-35 for the next six months. Then we'll re-negotiate."

Impose You set the standard and require the employee to agree to agree with your viewpoint. o "OSHA rules say that goggles and ear protectors must be worn in these circumstances. So that has to be one of the things I expect from you."

o "The department budget for this project is $10,000, and so you have to have the same standard."

There is an order to the various types of merges. You can always impose your view or agree with the employee’s views, but the best solutions usually come from creating a new alternative that is acceptable to both of you. Here’s the recommended order for using these four merging techniques:

o If the employee’s idea is a good one, simply agree with it. He or she will probably do the same with some of your ideas.

o If you disagree, create a new alternative that both of you can live with, or

o Try to meet in the middle (especially if it is a numeric goal).

o If an outside group such as upper management or a government agency is imposing a standard on your work, you will have no choice but to impose the same standard on your employee. When imposing, always explain why to lessen the bad feelings that may occur.

When conducting the goal discussion, recycle the steps of Get-Give-Merge for each goal before moving on to the next one. By doing so, you will maximize the employee’s buy-in and commitment.

Common Problems and Their Solutions

Here are the kinds of problems you may encounter when you sit down with your employees to create their goals:

Common Problems: Examples: Solution:

Tasks disguised as goals o Hold kickoff meeting by 9/1

o Meet with 15 clients per week

o Review documentation for errors. Ask, "If the kickoff is successful, what value will we add?" and then measure that result. For example, the result might be "buy-in to the new project" with an evaluation criterion of 10-15 locations volunteering to pilot the program."

Goals are too big or long range Achieve division profitability in 5 years. When a goal is too large and/or too far in the future to offer practical guidance on a near-term basis, identify interim goals that specify progress toward the longer-range goal. For example, achieving "$X revenue and $Y expenses by the end of the current year" could be an effective interim goal.

Goals for competencies Setting a goal of "improving teamwork" while simultaneously evaluating a competency called "teamwork" Decide which is more important, the end-result or the way of achieving the result.

o If the result is more important, set a goal for it.

o If the way of achieving the result is more important, evaluate only the competency and drop the goal.

Too many goals List of 25 goals Prioritize the goals in terms of effect on the organization and alignment with your goals and higher-level goals. Drop the low-priority goals or combine goals with similar intent.

Not practical to track o Answer the phone prior to the third ring.

o No typos on any documents. o Sample the work.

o Switch to exception reporting where the two examples become "No complaints due to unanswered phones or errors in documents."

o Drop the goals.

Vague or unverifiable evaluation criteria o Do a good quality job.

o Improve customer satisfaction. Identify numeric measures and goals or switch to a verifiable descriptive measure. For instance, "improve customer satisfaction" could become "score 3.5 to 4.0 on customer satisfaction survey" or "customers say they are willing to recommend our product to their colleagues."

Summary

Goal setting will go more smoothly if you prepare well and then hold meetings with your direct reports in which you:

o Set well-crafted goals that are results-based, verifiable, aligned, and have competencies and (as appropriate) development plans supporting them.

o Borrow measurement ideas from higher-level goals in the organization or from other functions or companies.

o Help the employee create goals based on the results his or her customers need. And use either numeric or descriptive measures to define the evaluation criteria.

o Negotiate goals by getting the employee’s view first, giving yours, and then merging the two views.

o Merge your views in this order: Agree, Create, Meet in the middle, and Impose when you have to.

References:

1. R. Rodgers and J. E. Hunter. Impact of Management By Objectives on Organizational Productivity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1991, vol. 76, pp. 322-336.

2. Larrie A. Rouillard. Goals and Goal Setting. Menlo Park, CA: Crisp Publications, 1998.

About the Author

M.com, Phd. An experience of 16 yrs split into academics and industry

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