We associate goals with effort, ambition, achievement and success. But did you know that goals are also defined as a “boundary or a limit”? This implies that goals as necessary as they are can also be confining – unless we “get” the whole picture.
It has been replicated many times that more challenging and specific goals are related to better performance (Locke et al, 1981). Goals direct and maintain attention on intended outcomes, thus increasing performance.
They also prompt us to increase our efforts proportionally to goal difficulty as well as to sustain them until we have achieved the desired outcome.
So, what makes a goal a “good goal”?
Goals are valuable when they are aligned with your values and they can stand the test of your ethics. Ethics are your inner compass of right and wrong. The key is to understand your internal drivers first and only then link them to your goals. Taking time for reflection and conceptualisation are the keys (David et al, 2016).
Research shows that goals are affected by eight factors (David et al, 2016). You can begin assessing your goals by:
1. Experience
What is your previous experience with a similar goal and what was your rate of success?
2. Values
Is this goal aligned with your personal beliefs and values?
3. Motivation
How important is the achievement of this goal to you?
4. Stakeholders
Who else has a shared interest in your goal?
5. Outcome
Can you clearly imagine the outcome?
6. Measure
How will you measure the success?
7. Stability
Is your goal a fixed or a moving target?
8. Context
How well do you understand the full picture?
Goals will give you purpose. This is a good thing. Bad thing, goals can also reduce your awareness of other factors that may be important for successful outcome. Goals require focused attention. But this can also result in the lack of context, thus reducing your awareness of other factors that may be important for success.
Getting the “big picture” and recognising the systemic nature of the situation reduces this tendency (David et al, 2016).
The big picture or the context of the situation also includes uncertainty. Therefore, the planning process of setting goals forces you to think through the right issues. But the reality is, you can’t foresee everything and, unpredictable things can happen.
To minimise this problem, Colonel Tom Kolditz (the Head of Behavioural Science division at West Point, US Army) invented a concept named Commander’s Intent – CI.
CI is a crisp, plain talk statement that appears at the top of every army order, specifying the end goal, the desired end state of operation. The CI can be relatively abstract or more concrete (think specific goals versus overall intention) but it is never too concrete that it can become obsolete in unpredictable situations (Heath and Heath, 2007).
The idea is to always feel responsible for executing the intent, even though you might temporarily loose the ability to execute what you originally planned. Nothing is set in stone and you are free to improvise in order to get to your destination.
It is a practical way of approaching your daily responsibilities while keeping in mind what is really important. You can ask yourself 2 questions:
If I do nothing else during my day tomorrow, I must……
The single, most important thing that I must do tomorrow is….
Goals give us a sense of direction and increase performance. Creating valuable goals is possible by following the eight step factors. I believe that the most useful step you can take before even setting any specific goals is to evaluate your values and intrinsic motivations – what do you really want as opposed to everything and everyone else. Even though authors Susan David and others distinguish between context, motivation and values, I think that values and motivation are central to the context to begin with. All other relevant factors flow from that center.
The next most important step you can do is to try to understand other relevant factors including your internal and external environment, the context itself as proposed above. This becomes especially important when making significant decisions. Getting the whole picture will reduce the potential limitations due to the specificity of the goal, like seeing the forest for the trees.
Take some time and reflect on what matters to you. Plan your goals but also understand that some goals are more difficult to measure but more important to do. So, increase the odds of doing the right things daily by following the concept of Commanders’ Intent. As always, do what you can and take charge.
Image: Alamy