SMART Goals

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.