Setting simple goals is a great way to define clear company objectives and measure success along the way.
Imagine a small-to-medium sized company with 50 employees. It has a standard structure comprised of teams, c-suite personnel and a mix of remote, hybrid and in-person staff members.
All in all everyone in the company is working towards the same goal of fostering a cohesive, content workplace and meeting the expectations of the business. But when think about that as a goal, it can be somewhat vague. This is because success and the metrics used to denote that success vary for each individual, even when those people are on the same team or working towards a similar end.
By using the SMART method, employers and managers can ensure that despite the individualised nature of the working experience, teams can unilaterally stay on course with the company’s targets and make smart, informed decisions.
What does it mean?
SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. These five points of focus are crucial to identifying a goal and proving it is attainable in the desired timeframe.
Making your goal specific ensures that it is clearly thought-out, leaving little room for misinterpretation. Broad ideas and projects can cause confusion amongst teams. For example, instead of setting a goal to increase social media output for the month of August, give specific targets for how many outputs you want. Opinions around what counts as strong online engagement are going to differ, but by settling on a particular figure, everyone understands what to aim for.
Make your goal measurable to helps people quantify the success or failure of their goals. This can be a process that is carried out gradually, therefore employers should ensure that when using the SMART system, there is an objective way to gather this information. For example, did you hit your deadlines? Did you reach the key figures you were aiming for? Did your product find the right target audience this month? These are all ways of measuring the success of the project across time and ensuring that you are meeting expectations. It can also help to identify areas in which expectations may be unrealistic.
The achievable element of SMART is exactly as you would expect. This is where you ascertain if the goals you set are possible to achieve or not. If your goals are not attainable then you need to return to the drawing board. It is important that targets are challenging as this encourages innovation and drive, but if you set a goal that is not achievable you will likely cause stress in the workplace and lower morale.
That segways nicely into the fourth step, the R for relevant. This is where you think about why you are setting goals and what you hope to achieve. Is this the best use of time and resources and does it fit with the company’s wider plans?
Lastly, the T which stands for time-bound ensures that projects have a clearly defined endpoint. Often when the details around a goal are vague, it can leave the timing aspect open to interpretation, delaying projects that are time-sensitive elements and undermining the work put into achieving them.
Benefits and challenges
There are always going to be highlights and glitches when you introduce a new system into a workplace that already has an established way of doing things. But SMART goals, when correctly implemented, can help companies and the people operating in them to identify priorities, elaborate on ideas and focus their efforts.
Employees may find that they are experiencing an increase in their motivation as their objectives and the way forward are clear. Also, because the SMART method enables people to track their progress and actively work towards an end goal, there can be a great sense of accomplishment in completing work.
However, there are some cons associated with the SMART method that employers should consider if they plan to introduce the system. For example, SMART works to clarify objectives, but you might find that more complex topics are oversimplified in the process. This can be rectified by breaking larger projects down into subgoals.
Additionally, because SMART is a roadmap, helping employers and employees to visualise a project from the beginning to the end, it can potentially feel too strict or rigid for people who like to flex their creative muscles throughout a process. However, this too can be alleviated by matching employees to the projects that better suit their interests and capabilities.
Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate
After all the hard work of introducing a new system, explaining its value to stakeholders and working out the kinks to get to the point you want to be at, it can be tempting to step back and let the system do its job.
But internal and external factors in a company can change like the weather, therefore it is imperative that someone is assigned to monitor the success of the SMART method, confirming where it is useful as well as where it may not be having the desired effect.
Ultimately, everyone in a company benefits when they know what they are working towards and the steps needed to make it happen and SMART goal methods give you the power to do that.
Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
