Along with the rest of humanity, the new year got me thinking about fitness goals. Again.
I've been thinking them for a while, and hadn't gotten around to putting anything concrete down on paper.
Not to say I wasn't exercising. But I hadn't pushed myself. Because I had no goal.
Remembering how SMART goals have helped me in business, I decided to make a fitness goal and make it SMART. (Find out how I did below)
A SMART goal is a tried and true concept in the good old white collar business world. If you haven't used it lately, here's a refresher, with my best tips...
What's a SMART Goal?
Like all good business concepts, SMART Goals come with an easy-to-remember acronym. The letters stand for the parameters to which your goal must adhere: specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound.
| S | specific |
| M | measurable |
| A | actionable |
| R | realistic |
| T | time-bound |
If you can't articulate a goal that adheres to each of the 5 parameters above, your goal
isn't as good as it could should be.
And not only that, but your goal isn't SMART. Worst... it may even be dumb. 👀
This isn't a new concept
Yeah. I didn't make it up.
But I've witnessed its misuse. And any concept is only as good as its implementation.
So while the parameters are straightforward, they can be misused. Even by the most well-meaning of savvy business-folk.
That's why I've put together the following examples of what not to do... plus how to do it right.
SPECIFIC
Your goal should be a singular objective. The ability to state one's objective succinctly is an admirable one indeed.
✗ What not to say: Improve our marketing/advertising/conversions next year.✓ Good Example: Increase our marketing Return on Ad Spend (RoAS) by 20% in 2022.
MEASURABLE
Arguably the most important letter of our acronym.
Your goal must be capable of being quantified (you have to be able to express it in terms of a numeric value).
You're going to need a metric. The better a job you do of defining it, the more achievable your goal will be. Alternatively, the wrong metric could invalidate your goal entirely. Pretty important to get it right.
Unfortunately, I've frequently seen metrics glossed over or misused everywhere from the conference table to the boardroom. It doesn't have to be that way. Here's my top tips for doing Metrics justice:
Tips for Defining Metrics
Metric Tip #1:
Think of the most granular way of measuring
your objective. Want your Support team to answer the phones faster? Look up
their Average Response Time, and set a goal for them to reduce it.
Metric Tip #2:
Document the metric when defining your goal, so
it cannot be misinterpreted at any point. Where does it come from and/or how
is it calculated?
Metric Tip #3:
When making a comparative goal (i.e. to previous time
period), be sure you know the old value. This will be the benchmark you measure against. Failure to know it will make
the goal unclear and/or hard to measure.
✓ Good Example: Achieve an Average Response Time for inbound calls less than 10 mins in Q3, across all support staff. This is compared to 12.24 minutes avg in Q2. Average Response Time used here is the value from the Zendesk dashboard.
ACTIONABLE
Your goal must be actionable. If the resource who the goal is assigned to is unable to affect it, it's not actionable. It has to be something they can do.
✓ Good Example: Marketing team to increase number of marketing-qualified-leads handed off to sales in August by 10% versus July.
REALISTIC
Put another way, your goal must be reasonable.
Do you want 100% sales growth? We'd all love that! But how do we go from "want it" to "got it"? Are you willing to...
... back it up with a similar increase in budget or leads to get there?
... provide training, or create offers that will spur additional or higher closings?
... change the product price or target different types of leads?
Some combination of ideas like the above is going to be needed in order to justify the goal.
On the other hand, doing nothing and expecting increased results is the antithesis of realistic. (There's other less-friendly terms for it, but let's be nice today.)
And the impact cannot be understated. As a leader, setting unrealistic goals leaves your employees headed for the doors... and you dead in the water.
SMART goals prevent such detachment from reality and the risks that accompany it.
In fact, the very presence of this "R" parameter is what holds executives accountable to setting their teams up to succeed.
✓ Good Example: Stabilize our downward trending revenues by setting a goal of 3 unit sales per month per sales rep through end of year. Meanwhile, management will work to implement changes to sales & marketing to spur sales growth in January.
TIME-BOUND
Finally, your goal needs a deadline.
Deadlines are arguably the easiest, but oh so often forgotten. Here's three tips you can practice when setting deadlines to ensure you don't ever miss this step again:
Tips for Setting Deadlines
Time Tip #1:
Don't know what deadline to set? Your best guess is
good enough. You might say "guessing isn't very tactical" and you'd be right. If you have a tactical deadline, use it! Otherwise, some deadline is
better than none.
Time Tip #2:
I encourage you to practice setting deadlines even on
trivial goals. Whether for yourself or others. It's a good habit to form, and
sets you up so you to avoid the next pitfall...
Time Tip #3:
Don't forget to communicate it and write it down! When
working with others, never underestimate the power of honest, inadvertent
miscommunication.
For example, you might assume something as "end of day", because it's a quick task. But the person you're working with might have a trillion other things to do before end of day. And while they respect the importance of your request, they see no harm in doing it later in the week.
✓ Good Example: Would you plan to send me the monthly financial report by the 10th of the month?
Okay you are now a SMART goal guru
Great! You're almost ready for the fun part -- going out and achieving it!
Before you embark on the path of glorious success, make sure you hold yourself accountable by doing these 2 things:
-
Write the goal down. This will prevent miscommunications or "misremembering".
-
Revisit your goal throughout the time period. Make a calendar reminder to periodically revisit the performance of the goal. How are you doing, why is it working (or not). Pick a time period that makes sense. If it's a quarterly goal, you might want to revisit this weekly.
My recent SMART Goals
My most recent SMART goals are about fitness and exercise.
In the middle of the pandemic, my wife looked for ways we could stay active while gyms were closed. We took our gym membership fee and put it toward an indoor rower.
The rower, and our other activity gear.
It's an easy way to get cardio in even when the weather isn't great. Plus it works out a broad set of muscle groups. I like it a lot and would recommend it to others.
Prior to setting a goal, I had been mindlessly rowing away for months.
The good news is that mindless rowing gave me a feel for what distances I was capable of comfortably (my benchmark).
So I set a goal of rowing daily for a distance modestly above my old benchmark.
My SMART goal was: Row 200,000 meters in January.
And I hit it on the head!
The manufacturer (Concept2) has an online logbook, and they do periodic challenges. This time around, they were nice enough to generate a certificate. Nice of them 👍
Without the goal...
Who knows how much I would have rowed? Not me, but I know my historic average would have been significantly less than 200k meters... And I highly doubt I would have beaten that without a goal in place.
Without goals at work, will you (or your team) achieve as much as you can?
What's next?
- Bicycle 100 miles per calendar month, starting in February 2021
- Run a 5k by March 31st, 2021
What about you?
Have a funny dumb goal to share, or need a second set of eyes to refine your own SMART goals? Post them here or email me any time.
Happy goal setting!
p.s. After you crush your next SMART goal, make sure you immediately set your next one!
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