SMART Goal-Setting Isn’t so Smart After All

 by Kelly Nelsen

A problem with the typical goal setting process

I don’t know about you, but I’ve missed plenty of the goals I’ve set for myself over the years.  I don’t live on a cliff overlooking the ocean, I don’t own a baby grand piano (although I do own an upright), and I didn’t get my doctoral degree by the time I was 40. I faithfully followed the SMART goal setting process for these things, too.  (You know, making your goal Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound?) 

As part of the SMART goal setting process, we’ve been taught to set a target for a goal – a measurement that defines whether the goal has been met or not.  It may be an amount, a percentage, a date, or some other criteria.  “Complete Microsoft Excel training class by December 31^st, 2009”, or “Lose 20 pounds by Christmas”, or some such thing.  Did you ever wonder, though, how to account for losing only 19 pounds rather than 20 by Christmas?   After all, shouldn’t 19 pounds count for something?  Usually, what we end up doing is considering losing 19 pounds as having met the goal, when technically, the goal was missed.  We didnt' actually lose 20 pounds. As a result, our goal setting and scoring at the end winds up being rather sloppy and vague in order to account for “almost-met” goals.  This leads us to start believing that falling short on a goal is okay, and pretty soon, it screws up the whole goal setting and achievement process.  At issue here is how the measurement criteria are developed.

We’ve discovered a much better process in working with clients over the years.  Instead of simply indentifying how to judge the goal and selecting a target to hit, we help them develop clear missed, met, and exceeded criteria when setting goals.  By determining these three different measurement criteria up front, the need for interpretation and “almost met” goals at the end is completely eliminated.   Setting missed, met, and exceeded criteria involves 1) setting the missed criterion, 2) setting the exceeded criterion, and 3) identifying the range between the missed and exceeded criteria as the met criterion.

Let’s take a sample business-related goal and discuss how to create measurement criteria for it:  To increase total power drill sales to $3.1 million by FYE 12/31/09.

In order to figure out what it means to meet a goal, it’s easiest to first determine what it means to clearly miss the goal.  For example, we may clearly miss the power drill sales goal if we only hit $2.8 million by FYE rather than the $3.1 million we determined earlier.  However, we’ve also thought about it and determined that it’s probably acceptable to hit $2.9 million.  This makes our $3.1 million target a little fuzzy, doesn’t it?  So, we can set the missed criteria to indicate that the goal will be clearly missed if power drill sales are less than $2.9 million by FYE 2009 (missed equals < $2.9 million). 

The next step is to identify the exceeded criterion.  The principle question to ask in this phase is,” What is clearly worth double the kudos (whatever those may be – points, benefits, bonus money, etc.) if a person exceeds this goal?”  If you think of the exceeded criterion as being a target that, if hit, is worth double the value of merely meeting the goal, you have the right idea.  In our power drill example, maybe $3.2 million isn’t worth double the points, but $3.5 million is, given the stretch that might take to get there.  If this is the case, the exceeded measurement criterion becomes anything equal to or greater than $3.5 million in power drill sales. 

So far, we have the missed criterion set at anything less than $2.9 million and exceeded set at anything equal to or greater than $3.5 million.  So what becomes the met criterion, then?  It’s not really $3.1 million, is it?  The met criterion becomes a range rather than a number.   In this example, the met range is $2.9 – $3.49 million. 

Although it may seem counterintuitive to think of a goal target as a range than a number, it makes sense when you consider the reality of goal accomplishment.  Setting an arbitrary target point is essentially the same as trying to shoot a gun at a target at a shooting range.  With luck (and a lot of skill), we might hit it dead-on, but in all likelihood, we’ll miss it to one side or the other.  As with target practice, by using the missed/met/exceeded criteria, we are allowing ourselves a range of hits, a clear range of misses, and an opportunity to be rewarded for stellar performance.

To learn more about our philosophies surrounding goal setting and employee performance, click here.