Aim for
the moon, even if you miss, you will land among the stars
I’ve been hearing this since forever… and then this
SMART Goals.
‘Work Hard, Work SMARTER’
Why so much of SMART…!!?? What’s the deal about this whole ‘getting
smart’ thing.
The history of mankind is studded with great stories of heroism and
perseverance. Alexander conquered the world, Gandhi taught the art of non
violence to millions, Einstein redefined the way we interpreted the concept of
space and time, Messi and Ronaldo questioning our beliefs about the
potential of a human on a football field.
The above stories have a common link to them. The link of vision.
Greatness is not an accident, it requires a vision to set a goal,
perseverance to follow it with great amount of zeal and passion
accompanied with a proper planning.
Similarly for an organization to flourish, it should have a clear vision and objective engraved into the DNA of its philosophy. The management's role lies in estimating the goal which is based on following parameters:
SMART Goals
S - specific, significant,
stretching
M - measurable, meaningful,
motivational, manageable
A - attainable, agreed upon,
achievable, acceptable
R - relevant, realistic,
reasonable, rewarding, result-oriented
T - time-bound, time-based,
timely, tangible
The estimated Goal should have all
the above mentioned characteristics. It must satisfy all the different
criteria and must be a function of all of them.
To explain the philosophy behind the
goal setting, let's revisit the activity of tower building. We have
gathered the following data from the past records regarding the tower building
activity:
History:
27 Potential:
Unknown
The
parameters to be decided are the Goal Set and Goal achieved.
Goal Set: To be
decided Goal achieved:
Unknown
A: Goal Set
B: Potential C:
Goal Achieved D:
History
Taking into consideration the variables that are a must for a smart
goal, the goal set(ambitious) must be greater than the historical mark that has
already been achieved. Similarly, it should also reflect the organization's
capacity to deliver. Unrealistic goals are equally misleading and dangerous as
the under-estimated goals. Hence the goal to be set should challenge an
organization's potential and should push it to redefine the historical
benchmarks that have been set in that particular field.