First and foremost, note that I used the word with not for. Research indicates that collaborative goal setting (rather than goal assigning) is key to their success. If employees, managers and organizations are on the same page of where they are headed, how to get there, and why it is important, goal achievement is much more likely.
Goals help clarify expectations, connect tasks to the big picture, and provide an identifiable pathway to success. They are how we grow personally and professionally and therefore integral to performance management. Goals work by improving focus and inspiring action, which in turn lead to optimized performance. In fact, over 500 separate studies in the past 50 years have found ambitious, specific goals are effective in improving outcomes.
Many approaches to setting and tracking goals have stepped into the spotlight over time: SMART goals, cascading goals, percentage weight goals, and micro goals name a few. There is no one approach to rule them all (at least in my opinion) but there are some considerations to evaluate if that approach is a good fit for the situation at hand.
Here’s my take:
In 1981 George Doran Published "There's a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management Goals and Objectives" in Management Review. In this, he argued that goals should not be amorphous & inarticulate. To be effective, they need to be measurable and concrete. Varied adjectives have been used in the SMART mnemonic over time. However, since 1981 SMART goals have been widely popular across industries and disciplines.
Pros: A clear, simple framework that is useful for ensuring a goals statement has been phrased effectively. The common familiarity of this structure and applicability across ages, industries, and situations is also a plus.
Cons:
• Encourages setting too easy of goals (sandbagging)
• Too rigid - does not allow a goal to flex with dynamic challenges
• Sometimes good goals are not quantitatively measurable
• “A goal can be SMART without being wise,” Dick Grote points out. AKA is it actually relevant to what matters for your role & company needs?
Tip: Use SMART goals as a way to check if goals are written well before finalizing, but not as an end-all-be-all template in the creation process itself.
Cascading goals are a hierarchical approach in which the highest executive level sets the organizational goals then each sub unit (department, team & individual) create goals that connect to the structure above them.
Pros: Provides clarity in what managers & leadership think is important.
Cons: Leads to a lot of waiting around for the group above you to set goals and "top-down" goal setting is less collaborative and motivation inspiring than "bottom-up" goal setting for employees.
Tips: Aim for more collaborative alignment by linking goals upwards in the organizational hierarchy or at least providing flexibility in the goal alignment process.
In this approach, goals are assigned a percentage weight based on their relative importance amidst other goals.
Pros:
• Provides an opportunity to reflect on and be planful about priorities, especially in a multi-faceted, dynamic role.
• Offers a structured space to increase alignment between employee focus & team needs.
Cons:
• At a granular level, percentage weights may not be practical. Most employees will likely not be able to meaningfully distinguish between effort investments differentiating by only 5-10%.
• As new priorities are added it may be challenging to identify which existing responsibilities should now carry a lower weight.
Tip: Goal priority is important to address, especially if you or someone on your team is struggling with time management or feeling overwhelmed by the breadth of projects on their desk. However, this strategy is most appropriate for prioritizing a small set of responsibilities (3-5 maximum) rather than many competing responsibilities.
It may also be useful as a way of tracking how much time in a role is spent on certain tasks and for writing or rewriting job descriptions. If percentage weights are not feeling like a good fit for you and your team, try a simpler "high, medium, low" rating or dynamic, relative priority ranking system instead.
Micro goals are the process of setting very, very small goals and scaling up slowly (~10% every few weeks) as sustainable building blocks towards larger goals
Pros: Takes away the intimidation factor of starting something new. It is a more sustainable approach than diving into big changes that you are not ready to maintain.
Cons: Takes a long time to culminate in big changes
Tip: This approach might be too slow for the dynamic, fast-paced needs of the workplace at times, but is worth considering for more career-long growth areas like interpersonal effectiveness, coaching, work-life balance etc.
While there are benefits and consequences to all of the above approaches, setting and reviewing goals and reviewing goals are still better than doing neither.
The how behind it though should be viewed similarly to a doctor prescribing medication.
There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to goals. As leaders, managers, development coaches, and engaged employees it is important to consider the context, the person, and the dynamic needs at play to optimize goal setting processes.
That being said, based on current research, the below common factors in goal setting seem to be the most net-positive in the majority of situations:
AMBITOUS
COLLABRATIVE
SPECIFIC
RELEVANT
ALIGNED
What works for you & your team? What approaches did we miss?
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