INCREASING PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY
in Your Business or Career: Goal-setting for all Occasions
By Nina Ham, CPCC, LCSW
One size fits all” may apply to large, floppy jackets in your favorite boutique, but it doesn’t apply to templates for effective goal-setting. The standard approach to goal-setting is linear: Joann’s goal to increase her income by 50% is achieved by doubling her networking activities. She knows the terrain, has a variety of active networking venues, and has succeeded using this approach in the past. Linear goal-setting is highly effective for some situations and some people some of the time.
But what if Joann, a management consultant for public sector organizations, has the goal of marketing her services to a new target group, international non-governmental organizations? This is relatively new terrain for Joann, so there’s information about feasibility, cost effectiveness, and personal fit to be explored and weighed. Joann knows from experience that the commitment and focus of goal-setting vastly improves her focus and productivity. How should she proceed?
First, here’s a review of a SMART-set goal. It’s a goal that is:
made Specific… no confusion about what completion looks like.
• stated so you can Measure your progress at any given point.
• Announced to at least one person, to enhance its credibility and your accountability for achieving it.
• Realistic to complete in terms of available time and resources.
• specifically Timed: a date set when you will have completed it.
A few more words about SMART-setting goals.
In my many years of experience helping people manage change, virtually everyone who uses goals successfully to move from where they are to where they want to be includes in their goal-setting template the elements of “specific”, “measurable” and “timed”. What also seems surprising, however, is the number of times people believe their goals are clear and achievable, only to realize at any given moment they don’t know how far they’ve progressed or how long to allow for completion. This is often a downhill slope to discouragement and loss of focus.
A helix model for goal-setting
In setting her goal to find a new market for her consulting business, Joann establishes a 3-month time frame within which to make a decision about the feasibility of non-governmental organizations. She has now satisfied “specific”, “measurable” and “timed”. She has also established a budget and blocked out time on her calendar, and she has announced her plan to a colleague. Now she can begin to design a sequence of exploratory phases, each one framed within the same “specific”, “measurable” and “timed” guidelines. She might plan in-person visits to six heads of ngo’s to assess the fit between their needs and her skills and experience. She’ll develop a rating scale beforehand to measure the degree of fit at each site, and she’ll complete the visits by the end of two months. Let’s imagine that after the first two visits new factors come to her attention that require her to modify the rating scale and discard two of the remaining ngo’s as possibilities. This is going to impact her initial time and budget allotments, so she must return to the initial goal and decide whether and how to revise it.
Joann’s footprints through these early stages of reaching her goal trace a helix. Each circuit of the spiral is dictated by her goal, to reach a decision about marketing to ngo’s; and the data collected from each circuit gets folded into the next and shapes its direction. Joann’s progress could have derailed as a result of the unforeseen data from the first two site visits. Because she SMARTed her goal initially and adopted the more flexible helix template, the negative data still bears fruit by identifying a decision-point and pointing to options for redirecting from there.
Which tool to choose, straight line or helix?
It will always be true that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. When you know where you want to go and can foresee the steps for getting there, get started! Before setting off, though, SMART-set your goal, so that you can measure your progress and evaluate the effectiveness of the actions you take.
Goals that are particularly well-suited to the helix template are goals that take you across terrain with many parts and/or many unknowns. A goal that seems overwhelming at the outset becomes doable when approached via multiple passes, with the results of each phase pointing to the direction for the next.
In choosing your template, keep in mind that just as there are tasks better suited to one or the other, there are times and places. It may be that the morale boost you get from completing a goal in a linear fashion is exactly what your career or business most needs at this point, even if there are bigger goals important to your future success waiting for your attention. On the other hand, if creativity or motivation is at low ebb, constructing an ambitious goal with multiple parts may be exactly right for opening up new vistas. In these instances, the helix model provides a useful combination of flexibility and accountability.
Now you know the basics of SMART goal-setting, applied using your choice of two different templates. Play around until you find what works best for you. Perhaps you’ll design your own template. Happy goal-achievement, and may you have a good wind at your back!
Nina Ham, certified coach and licensed psychotherapist, is principal of Success from the Inside Out (www.SuccessfromtheInsideOut.com), providing individual coaching and programs via telephone to build the skills, attitudes and habits for sustainable success in your career or business. Mail to: Nina@womenssuccesscoach, “subscribe” in subject line, for free monthly e-zine.
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