[Read as a limerick]
SMAART or SMARRT is more smart than SMART,
But even that is only grammar.
So know each part and take it to heart,
And performance will be much more ah grander.
The SMART acronym has been promoted as a quality measure for the structure of personal performance goals. While there are different versions of it, this acronym most often represents – Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound. But using these, or any of the several variations, isn’t enough. They do not meet the requirement of being both ‘necessary & sufficient’. It’s like grammar-checking assembly instruction. You may identify if the sentence are correctly structured, but if instructions are accurate and correct.
If we add either an additional “A” or “R”, depending which acronym version you like best, significantly approves the value of it as a tool. If we adjust it to be: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, [Achievable/Relevant], Realistic, Time-bound, it is much better. Let’s look at each step compared to what an employee really wants in goal setting (see previous entry for those details).
Specific: of course a goal has to provide information for the employees to properly focus their energy and activity. I never met a productive confused person.
Measurable: a goal needs to not only to state what the employee should do, but how it is going to be measured. Often the correct measurement dramatically changes the behavior of the employee. Think about the difference for a salesperson if they are measured on profits rather than just sales.
Actionable: even if a goal is clearly defined, if it’s not actionable then it will only frustrate the employee. The goal should be defined to direct the activity or behavior of the employee. Increasing Revenue can be a great goal, but not for an accountant working on accounts receivables.
Achievable/Realistic: if an employee believes the goal is so far beyond what they could accomplish they won’t even try – regardless of the size of the potential reward. But another issue that comes into play here is if the employee doesn’t have the necessary resources or is too dependent on people, resources or events outside of their control they will also not put in much effort to achieve the goal.
Relevant: this is one of the most import aspects of a goal that is often left out. An employee’s goals are intended to direct their behavior and their energy. Often times managers simply enter goals into the performance management system that are easy to create and track, but these goals may not actually be the RIGHT goals. This attribute of a goal – is it relevant to the success of the business – should certainly be adding to the measure of a good goal.
Time-bound: this attribute is my favorite. Most people include this on the list, but loose almost all the power of this piece. It’s actually used not just for defining the goal itself but also the level of performance (or achievement) of the goal. Most people create ‘time-bound’ goals for a calendar period by including that the goal should be accomplished by 12/31/XX. But the point of being time-bound is to identify when the goal must be achieved, or to recognize the value of finishing the work early. If you’re implementing a software package to support a marketing plan that will go live on Sept 1st, you better get it done by September, not December. But also if you’re implementing a software package that will provide efficiencies for the sales force there’s more valuable that will be received if you get it done in March versus December.
But the best measure of all is critical thinking. If the employee achieves their goals, will the expected business value be received? That’s really goal setting is all about.
