Back to Basics on Goal Setting

For most of my life, I’ve found myself extremely motivated to do good work.  In K-12, college, even in my work in the education field.  After my MBA though, the corporate transition has been rough in terms of my motivation to excel.

What gives? 

Goals (and purpose).  Believe it or not, I have had clear goals UNTIL my time in corporate, not the other way around. Let’s take a look at the difference in goals: 

• K-12: get good grades

• College: get good enough grades, get an internship/job

• Teaching: clear student performance goals on the standardized test, prepare for next grade

• Post-teaching education roles: complete projects with high satisfaction scores in a specific time, improve student learning

And corporate? 

• Job 1: “improve detail orientation”

• Job 2: “don’t get fired by your client”  

Cue SIDE EYE.

This is literally the difference.  The corporate world I’ve entered into does not have a good sense of how to use a company mission to inspire its goals, and then cascade down organizational goals to its individual employees. 

From my viewpoint, we know better “how” to write a goal…but…do we know “what” goals to set?  Let’s talk about it in this post.    

Goal Setting And Neuroscience

From the Institute for Executive Coaching and Leadership:  “The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is a collection of cells at the base of the brain stem. Its primary role is to act as a kind of sorting center, processing the many thousand pieces of information per second that the sensory channels produce, filtering them, and prioritizing those things that require immediate attention. It can also play an important role when it comes to goal setting.

An interesting feature of the RAS is that when activated it, has the ability to give us signs or omens. For example, a person whose goal is to start a family is likely to see more couples and families due to RAS activation. The RAS is aware that starting a family is important to the person and registers information related to it (Alvarez & Emory, 2006).”

The act of writing goals and actions engages our senses and in doing so activates the RAS. Writing them down informs the brain that the goal or action is important to the counterpart and RAS activation will ensure that information related to goal attainment will be registered with a level of priority. In summary: goals are a way for humans to direct their behavior.

Why goals are beneficial 

Setting goals is linked with higher motivation, self-esteem, self-confidence, and autonomy, and research has established a strong connection between goal-setting and success.

Author Nowack stated that goal-setting ensures success by serving three purposes:

1. Enlightening Us - Providing meaningful insight into our abilities and weaknesses, and by helping us prioritize our goals depending on our needs.

2. Encouraging Us - It provides the motivation and courage to implement the goals and execute the plans efficiently.

3. Enabling Us - Goal-setting enables us to achieve the balance between our real and ideal self. By implementing the goals and succeeding from it, we regain self-confidence, social support, and can evaluate our achievements.

Now that we have an understanding of why goals are beneficial and how they enable us to get what we want, let’s get to what goals we should think about setting.  

Types of Goals

Setting the right goals matters (ask venture capitalist John Doerr).  

Goals are NOT supposed to capture all of your work or life.  They are only meant to isolate areas that are most important - in fact, set no more than 3-4 goals.  Some areas of work/life are just “keeping the lights on” or “business as usual” (BAU), maintaining your current level of performance.  Although BAU takes effort, it isn’t aimed at major improvement.    

It's also important to set the right type of goal for the situation.

Think of 4 goal types: 

1. Performance (also "Production") goals - goals tied to how well you do your job (not the outcome of the work) Example:  You can finish your project on time, but perhaps it does not result in the savings you expected

2. Outcome goals - goals related to individual or organizational outcomes (not the work itself) Example: You increase sales by 10%

3. Process goals - goals tied to following certain instructions, such as values, behavioral expectations, experimenting/innovating, or displaying competencies Example: You met expectations for coming to the office; you 

4. Capacity goals - goals tied to building your abilities as an employee

5. Team goals - This stands on its own, as team goals are the collective achievement of any of the above types of goals Example:  0 safety incidents at a construction site 

Of the first 4 goals, 2 have become more prominent in this new world of work: process and capacity goals.  This means individuals and organizations are starting to emphasize learning and adopting new behaviors, such as experimentation or collaboration.  

In summary - before writing your goals, think about what type of goal is most appropriate. The most complex goals often require innovation and experimentation, which usually means emphasizing process and capacity. However, sometimes, you just want a performance goal if it is really clear what you need to do.

Be careful with outcome goals, as you often cannot control the outcome, only your performance. Emmanuel Acho, a former football player, makes this point in his misguided TED talk - he was so fixated on the outcome, that he ignored focusing on his performance.

An Example to Illustrate Types of Goals

 Let’s say you are a manager of a project management office.  

Here are examples of the different types of goals: 

• Performance:  Manage the completion of 3+ projects on time in 2024

• Outcome:  Reduce costs by $50K by eliminating waste in construction

• Process:  Give feedback aligned to Radical Candor’s best practices at least monthly

• Capacity:  Attend 6 coaching sessions and built capacity to be proactive, as evidenced by appropriately escalating 80% of issues to the right person on time

• Team (Outcome):  Together, the portfolio of projects your team handles should achieve 90% LEED certification (a sustainability certification)

Let’s do a personal life example. for wanting to "get healthy".  

• Performance:  You want to finish the Boston Marathon

• Outcome:  You want to lose 20 pounds in 6 months

• Process:  You want to go to yoga twice a week

• Capacity:  You want to learn to cook 1 new vegetarian meal a month

Reviewing the examples above, it is easy to see that goals look very different depending on the type you choose. The type you choose needs to depend on the situation and what actions you want to incentivize. Too often we emphasize outcome, when the right answer was a different goal.

What research says are best practice

Goal Setting Theory was proposed by Professor Edwin Locke of the University of Maryland at College Park and Professor Gary Latham of the University of Toronto, Canada, eventually drafting these tenets that have become the foundation:

• The more difficult the goal, the greater the achievement.

• The more specific or explicit the goal, the more precisely performance is regulated.

• Goals that are both specific and difficult lead to the highest performance.

• Commitment to goals is most critical when goals are specific and difficult.

• High commitment to goals is attained when (a) the individual is convinced that the goal is important; and (b) the individual is convinced that the goal is attainable (or that, at least, progress can be made towards it).

• Goal setting is most effective when there is feedback showing progress in relation to the goal.

• Goals stimulate planning in general. Often the planning quality is higher than that which occurs without goals.

• Goals affect performance by affecting the direction of action, the degree of effort exerted, and the persistence of action over time.

• Goals serve as standards of self-satisfaction, with harder goals demanding higher accomplishment and providing more self-satisfaction than easy goals.

The above list naturally evolved into the SMART Goal framework, which below I made into a checklist you can use: 

• Specific - Is the goal concrete enough to know what work is expected of the person, and what excellence looks like?

• Measurable - Can you say clearly whether the person did or did not meet the goal?

• Attainable - Is the goal realistic and in the exclusive, direct control of the person?  

• Relevant - Does the goal align with the person’s priorities (and if relevant, the team/organization’s priorities)?  

• Time-bound - Is the goal given a clear period to be accomplished?

Recently, researchers added a bit more to the equation, updating to “SmartER” Goals.  

The new adjacents include:

• E (Evaluative/ethical) – Do the actions required to achieve the goal follow professional and personal ethics?

• R (Rewarding) – Do the results of the goal-setting come with a positive reward and bring a feeling of accomplishment to the person?

So together with identifying the right type of goal, you now have a checklist of questions to ask whether the goal is written well. Let's review some potential unintended consequences and drawbacks of goal setting to watch out for.

Unintended and Potentially Negative Impact of Goals

In recent years there have been many interesting developments on the impact of goals in organisations, in particular some negative side effects of excessive stretch goals. There is a downside when goals are overused or used in inappropriate ways. 

For example, later research has found that:

• When goals are too specific, people’s perspectives narrow and they may miss important information

• With very specific goals, often the time frame is shortened and so decisions may not necessarily allow for longer-term impacts

• When goals are too challenging, people tend to take unnecessary risks to achieve them, and in some cases choose unethical or even illegal behavior to reach their targets

• In organizations, goals can inhibit learning, damage motivation and hinder a culture of collaboration

That is to say - goals are not everything, and incentives should be used very carefully.  What is most important is that goals are a way for people to better organize themselves and organizations to carry out their mission and achieve their inspiring visions for the future.  

If you want to discuss your goals, book a free discovery call here. 

For learning and with love, 

Chris