Creating Goals That Work

I’m a big advocate of creating goals for myself and others. I encourage my executive coaching clients to create goals for themselves and the people they lead and manage. The challenge is to know the types of goals and how to use them constructively.

Stretch goals are my favorite. These are the kinds of targets that are difficult, but not impossible, to meet. The use of OKRs (Objective — Key Results) goals in many of the top companies is to take individuals out of their comfort zone and help them dream big. Stretch goals are encouraging and have the tone “you can do it.” They don’t say join a running club and compete in a marathon next week, rather they challenge you join a running club with the goal of peak fitness and a measurement that you would run a marathon in six months. There are always big wins with stretch goals but not condemnation for only reaching part of it initially. Rather you continue the goal until it is achieved. Stretch goals honor perseverance and overcoming hurdles. Reaching them is often the prize, although incremental recognition in the form of praise, money, title increase, or prestige may also occur.

Short-term goals work particularly well with newer, less experienced workers. Many have difficulty seeing out a year or more. With entry-level people I like weekly or even day goals. My intention is to give them a taste of success. In retail we even had hourly contests with sales staff. It got the competitive energy going and gave us the opportunity to congratulate individuals and teams in real time. Many companies have monthly or quarterly bonuses — bits of encouragement spread throughout the year.

Measureable goals. I can’t tell you how many people tell me, “my job isn’t measureable.” I can’t imagine what they do that doesn’t have a beginning, end, and an outcome. Now, maybe they don’t know what they are supposed to be doing but there is a reason they were hired to do the work and someone is expecting results. Measureable goals describe what should happen in areas such as dollars, percentages, increase in numbers, completion of projects, and/or visible change in behavior. They need to have a set time frame. They should be ratable by another. Creating measureable goals is a skill, a very learnable skill that many managers avoid or forget.

Collaborative goals. These are integrated targets that demand contributions from a number of participants. They assume no one person has a broad enough skills set, nor the time or energy, to complete all of the work. Achieving the goals depends on everyone’s contribution and the ability of each employee to interact with other team members. Collaborative goals can produce huge results because of the brainpower and imagination that is behind them. They also help identify leadership skills among players.

Attainable goals. If people believe “it will never happen,” then goal setting is nothing but an exercise in futility. Crafting goals that people can imagine reaching and then pushing with a stretch is challenging without being demoralizing. Examples of people who have achieved such feats give even more incentive to others. Publically sharing the targets of upper management proves to all that everyone needs to succeed in order to reap the benefits.

In creating goals that work — stretch, short-term, measureable, collaborative, and achievable — they can be combined to create super goals that are expected and possibly can achieve some great unexpected results.

How do your goals measure up?