Are Your Goals as SMART as You Think?

James: 0:03

hello, I’m James.

Jimmy: 0:04

Hi, I’m Jimmy.

James: 0:05

Welcome to A Job Done Well,

Jimmy: 0:08

The podcast about the world of work and how to improve the daily grind.

James: 0:13

Right. Good morning. How was your holiday? Did you have a good Christmas and new year? Yeah, happy new year,

Jimmy: 0:17

James. It was it was good. Well, today we are going to be sharing some insights around goal setting to help you as you think about what is it you want to achieve in 2024. This is the second of our festive

James: 0:32

soul sucking time of year. I love it when you get down and you have to write your goals and agree them with your boss. goals agree them last time we talked about live, leveraging your strengths.

Jimmy: 0:43

Now we want to build on that to make sure you’re not one of the sheep setting New Year’s resolutions and regretting the gym membership by the end of January.

James: 0:52

does that ever happen to you then, Jimmy, or not? For

Jimmy: 0:55

Probably most years, I would imagine.. we get into goal setting, James.

James: 0:59

How’s your week been?

Jimmy: 1:00

How’s your week been?

James: 1:02

I had a super Christmas, thank you very much. I didn’t strangle my daughters and my wife is still talking to me. So I’m taking that as a total success. I’m

Jimmy: 1:09

presuming Mrs. Law that has not yet listened to the last episode. Seeing as she hasn’t actually strangled you

James: 1:17

hasn’t, and she’s got a present which she was very grateful for, I think. Well,

Jimmy: 1:22

a couple of things I want to mention this week. First off, back to the, On going theme of small businesses versus large businesses. large Big Big up for Rudy’s Pizzas in Nottingham.

James: 1:34

Ruge’s Pizzas, I haven’t tried them yet.

Jimmy: 1:35

Try them. Best pizzas I’ve had in years. Great service, good prices, nice atmosphere. They are really nailing it.

James: 1:45

What you should have said is this podcast is being sponsored by Ruge’s Pizzas, but clearly it’s not, you

Jimmy: 1:50

it’s not. There’s no, there’s no pay for this, I just enjoyed my pizza. Whereas, my ongoing claim for a leak in my cellar with Zurich now enters its second year, and we’ve had so far seven companies look at our cellar and do stuff for Zurich, which I am completely confident has cost them more money. Now, I should point out at this point, at this point I’d like to note that I

James: 2:22

At this point, I’d like to note that I get routinely coached by Mr. Barber. I shouldn’t have a seven minute rant, and I think we’ve just experienced a Barber rant, go on then, Jimmy, what’s your personal perspective on goal setting? Does it work or not?

Jimmy: 2:35

So personally, I use goal setting a lot. I do set goals for the year ahead. And I also do, look, further ahead and you know, how people do the the legacy bits and tomb staff. I find that a bit morbid. So I, when I was thinking about it, I, I did the, what do I want people to say at my hundredth birthday party? And I think, really, for me, there’s a bit of spending some time thinking about what it is you want to achieve is positive, but then how you use it, so I’ll pick up my goals every year or so, or every couple of months if they’re annual, and just, just check in, how am I progressing against them, you know, I had that commitment, I had that impetus to try and achieve something, am I, am I on the right track, so I don’t use them slavishly, but I do use them to help

James: 3:26

in life. Yeah, I have a slightly jaundiced view on goals. I think that, as a personal level, setting goals and targets for yourself is great, but the minute other people start setting you goals at work, then you get into targeting and other people’s agendas, and I think it all goes a bit wrong. But we’ll talk about that in due course. So let’s start off with a definition of goal setting because I have looked online, so here you go. Goal setting involves the development of an action plan designed in order to motivate and guide a person or group towards a goal. And apparently goals are more deliberate than desires and momentary intentions, which I think makes perfect sense. There’s nothing to argue about there. So at that level, goal setting, very sensible.

Jimmy: 4:15

I had a look at how you go about goal setting, which we’ll also talk about in a And there are so many different ways of doing it. You know, lots of people have heard of SMART goals. But, you know, have you heard of the 3 R’s, the 4 C’s, the 5 principles, the 6 F’s?

James: 4:34

The 6 F’s? but I’m not sure that’s what it stands for. So go on then, what does 6 F’s stand for?

Jimmy: 4:39

Family, Fitness, Finance, Friends, Faith and

James: 4:43

Very American, no doubt. Did you get that off an American website? I might have. Yeah. And I think you get into the whole conventional thinking there, don’t you? So every year people are busy thinking about SMART goals and objectives and typing into HR systems and recording them and getting them agreed with their boss. There’s a huge amount of effort goes into these from a work perspective. But the real question is, is does goal setting work? So there you go. Would you like to look at that? What do you

Jimmy: 5:13

that? Yeah, so, and that’s part of the reason why I personally Set goals on a pretty regular basis is I saw some research some years ago that really helped convince me that it was worth spending some time doing. They they tracked, did, did some research around Harvard, MBA students and they tracked their performance and lives over the, the course of a, a decade and what they found that the top 3% earned 10 times. As much as the bottom nine, 97%. So

James: 5:48

97%. Go on, sorry, the top 3 percent in what way?

Jimmy: 5:50

The top 3 percent who set their goals. Ah, they earned 10 times as much as the bottom 97 percent who didn’t set their goals. So I think that’s pretty compelling in terms of, you know, it, yes, it’s financial and that’s one measure of success. But certainly it was compelling to me in terms of setting goals. and writing them down. I think that’s the the kind of value is thinking, writing, and making a commitment. There’s also another study by Latham and Locke who talked about the fact that more specific and ambitious goals does lead to more performance improvement than easier general goals. So, setting some sort of ambition rather than just something that you can, you know, turn up for work and you’ll achieve definitely leads to better performance. On a personal level, the other thing that I’d, I’d experienced is I set some goals around finding a new job some years ago. And when I, I actually sat down and wrote down what it is I wanted from a new job in quite a lot of detail. I found the envelope I put in a few months ago and I had a look at it and it was like I had a crystal ball now. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure some of that was coincidental, but I do think some of it was because I had it in my head. That’s the sort of job that I would like to get.

James: 7:14

Yeah, I suppose there’s an element, it’s a bit like my mum used to say to me, if you don’t ask James you won’t get, but just being clear about what you want is a really good first step. So at work, I think where I have had a goal, and it’s been something that I’ve wanted to do, it has worked really very, very well. One of the things that’s always floated my boat at work is making sure that the bit that I work for delivered really good service to its customers. And once you’ve got that in your mind, and that’s what you’re striving to do, and you get behind it, then it can be done. So that has really worked for me. Although better service is not that tangible, on a more tangible level, there have been things like, for example, I did the London Triathlon rather more years ago than I care to admit, but just the fact that I said to myself I was going to do it really helps.

Jimmy: 8:00

We should pause at this moment and just reflect on the fact that you were a triathlete.

James: 8:06

but

Jimmy: 8:06

Ironman law, though, whatever

James: 8:08

I’m also, here we go, an intellectual. So the other thing I’ve been working on is speaking French. Let’s be honest with you, I still speak car crash French, but I’ve given myself the goal of doing it, and just the consistency of spending half an hour every day on an app on my phone has really helped. I do think goals help a lot, but there are some caveats to that. I think the first thing is the person has to accept the goal. He also thinks, has to believe he’s got the ability to achieve it. And then of all, the other thing you need to be wary of is conflicting goals. And if you can get those things straight, then you stand a really good chance of achieving what you’ve set out to do. I

Jimmy: 8:47

the the other thing is difficult goals and difficult specific goals do lead to higher performance than easy goals. or even having no goals. But I think even the setting of a rough goal is it really helps people do their best. according to the research, they found out that difficult goals should be set at the 90th percentile of performance. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but for me I think it is just setting more challenging goals. I think people don’t get motivated by being average, I used to say in a lot of the organisations I’ve worked for, you don’t get out of bed thinking, today I’m going to be really mediocre at my job.

James: 9:29

So

Jimmy: 9:30

So I think setting a goal that you can strive and feel good about achieving definitely drives higher

James: 9:37

that gets into that whole question about stretched goals. And is it really stretched? I mean, I work for an organization where, Everything was a stretch goal. You’d have a goal, and then you’d put a stretch on the goal, and then you’d put a stretch on the stretch. And it was almost a management tool to rack up the pressure, rather than necessarily something that people had committed to. Do

Jimmy: 9:57

Do you remember the probably the same organization where you had BHAGs?

James: 10:02

eHat? Oh yeah, I do.

Jimmy: 10:03

hairy, audacious goals. I think the thing, one of the things about stretch goals is though, if they become too stretching, I think they can either cause people to burn out because they really try and drive for those goals or you just don’t even bother to try. You just look at it and think, well, I’m never going to achieve that. So you don’t even bother. So I think, you know, that the point about the 90th percentile, I think is, is a good one. Just directionally says it’s challenging, ambitious, but people do feel that it is achievable. And they’re not going to burn themselves out by trying to, to, to achieve it.

James: 10:41

So I suppose that leads us on to, you know, what’s the research say about why goal setting works? it appears that it does, but why does it

Jimmy: 10:50

I think it impacts the, the outcomes in, in a number of different ways. It does give focus, so it narrows people’s attention. Rather than focusing on being better in lots of different ways, you’re focused on What you’re what relates to a particular goal and what actions help you get to a goal. They do help increase the amount of effort that people will make. If somebody is producing four widgets an hour and wants to produce six widgets an hour, then initially they will work harder to try and achieve more widgets than they would if they didn’t have that goal. To your point about, learning better French, you’re not going to suddenly start learning better French unless you’ve got a goal already.

James: 11:30

I think also

Jimmy: 11:32

I think also they do make people more persistent. They will work through some of the setbacks and challenges more likely if they’ve got a goal, that they’re trying to achieve. And it does cause people to develop and change their behavior in order to try and achieve goals. So there are a number of areas that, clearly show these, that if you set a goal, these are some of the things that will happen to performance.

James: 11:55

But I think there’s a really important point here, which is that. the person who has the goal has to accept the goal. So your thing about the old b hags, well a b hag is great if you buy into it, but if it’s just been handed to you on a plate, it’s and you just expect to crack on with it, then it’s something totally different. So I suppose there are three things that need to be in play for people to commit to a goal. The first thing is you need to be, it needs to be important to a person. Achieving a goal, which is important to you, really helps. The next thing is you have to believe you can actually achieve it or it’s reachable. So it might be just slightly out of reach, but the whole thing about stretch goals and BHAGs, if you don’t think you can ever achieve it, you won’t really ever try. And then the other thing which is really important is have you actually committed to others? Because if you’ve got a group of people around you who are helping you and supporting you, then that really helps you accept a goal and push on with it.

Jimmy: 12:52

I think you’re right James, but I think getting people to commit to their own goals is so much more powerful than forcing a goal on people. But also understanding, what’s your actual commitment towards that particular goal. an example that I’ve been doing, I try to read more books. Now there’s a difference between, the general principle of reading more books and me saying, well I’m going to read six more books. If I, what I’m doing at the moment is I’m listening to more books, which actually is like reading more books, but it doesn’t mean I’ve ticked the box of, of, of reading six more books. So I think it’s about a principle rather than just about the specifics. Yeah,

James: 13:33

Yeah, and there’s also the question of why you’re reading the books now as the guess you want to read the books because you’re both should be better informed, but well at least I hope that’s the case. But in that instance then listening to podcasts, which I know you do as well, is actually probably just as good as reading to books unless of course they’re podcasts are book folk.

Jimmy: 13:50

Well, in fairness, the last book I did

James: 13:53

Was it about football?

Jimmy: 13:55

was the one that you recommended, and it was very, very dark. I’m still receiving therapy for that one.

James: 14:03

And then I think the other thing which is really important I think, particularly when you get to my age and you’re semi retired, is this whole question of having purpose in your life. If you’ve got goals and things that you want to achieve, then it does give you that sense of purpose, and that actually gives you increased happiness. And you know, I’ve written this book, but the actual process of sitting down and writing actually made me quite happy because I was focused on achieving something.

Jimmy: 14:26

So I think we’ve covered off James, you know, why goal setting works and some things that you’ve got to consider in them, but there is a downside to setting

James: 14:36

But there is a downside to setting goals. Well I think there is a fine

Jimmy: 14:46

I think there is a fine line at times between setting goals, which are kind of directional and aspirational and setting targets. Targets tend to be very specific. Goals are more directional. Targets tend to take success as, very binary. You either succeed or you fail, and targets tend to be short term. thE danger with goal setting is that you just get into, setting yourself a load of targets or setting, imposing targets on other people.

James: 15:18

so have you seen it done badly then?

Jimmy: 15:21

wE’ve all, we’ve all seen organisations set targets and then either, get the wrong outcomes or piss people off when they don’t hit them. I think the top down dictated objectives. Yeah, prevalent in lots of businesses that we’ve worked in.

James: 15:39

phrases, hitting the target but missing the points. So I’ve seen organizations where they’ve had a short term profitability target to hit The only way they could do it was by reducing costs. So because they’ve got a quarterly target they go out and sack a load of people and that’s fine because they hit the targets it’s not good for the long term performance of their business. the whole thing about targets versus goals really needs to be thought through quite carefully. There is actually some academic disagreement about it. One of the papers is called Goals Gone Wild, The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal Setting. And what the authors argue is that the benefit of setting goals is overstated in most organizations and they cause more harm than good. So you’ve got the whole thing about hitting the target and missing the point, but what else?

Jimmy: 16:30

what else? Well I think they are often used by leaders who believe in command and control. So that is that they are going to control how their business, their team operates and they will command the way it is done. And so, you know, effectively when that’s done, and we’ve seen it done in one of the big companies that we work together at, where, the senior leaders definitely operated by command and control, and their bad behavior cascaded down the organization, so everyone was setting targets for their teams, not giving people any say in it, that even often tell you how they think you should do it I think that kind of unbalanced, one dimensional thinking, that really causes some, some significant issues.

James: 17:20

significant issues. Yeah. And then there’s of course this feeling amongst managers that they’re omnipotent and they know everything and they can set the right targets. Whereas really they don’t know what goes on in the areas beneath them. And that whole narrow goal focus just means that people ignore the bits which are in their goals. So I’ve seen it countless times. You want to improve an operation, you just go and look at the where the different areas butt up. Because people have different targets and goals, and because of that, it just becomes hugely inefficient. The other thing, and there was quite an interesting study on this, is this whole thing about tunnel vision. So the reason why target setting and goals works, is because it causes you to focus your attention. But do you actually want your employees to focus your attention? Particularly if they’re in the creative areas, maybe you want them to be thinking a bit more widely. And then, as well, the other thing we can’t help ourselves do, but do, is act a dirty great big bonus to try and motivate people to hit the targets. And then you get into a whole debate about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and what you’re really doing for the motivation of your team as a whole. drifting off the subject of goals per se there. But it’s very easy to start to mess things up quite badly for your organization.

Jimmy: 18:37

I can remember one time when I was running a sales team and we were, we were basically selling loans. We wanted to sell loans. The, the cherry on top was if we could get people to attach insurance to those loans as well. And they were even more profitable. We had these teams that were performing really well. I went and sat with them, And what they were doing is, if people wanted a loan, but they didn’t want to take the insurance out, they would fob them off. Tell them how to think about it. Call back later. Knowing that when they called back later, they’d be speaking to somebody else.

James: 19:11

to

Jimmy: 19:13

They were just trying to rig their figures to make sure that the only loans that they issued were ones with insurance, because that’s how we had set their goals and that’s how we were setting their bonuses.

James: 19:24

Yeah. And did those guys who were on the phone selling that insurance. Did they buy into the goal they were given?

Jimmy: 19:30

were given? No, they just wanted the money. Yeah, well. They were dealing with the motivation of the incentive, not the, you know, the passion for delivering on a goal that they had set themselves.

James: 19:42

You just destroy organizational culture. Because you’re not doing the right things for the business at all. You’re just doing what the right things are for the individual. And therefore you lack collaboration and people might actually start to deliberately obstruct each other all because of the goals that they’ve been set. And of course the other thing you can do is you can also distort people’s attitude towards risk. Because what they might think is a terribly risky and dangerous thing to do, if that’s what their goal is and their mortgage depends on it, then they’ll just crack on without worrying about it.

Jimmy: 20:14

Yeah, there’s plenty of stories on there throughout the ages city traders in particular taking massive risks with, with money just to, to try and make themselves money. I mean, remember the old rogue trader, Nick Leeson, down, brought down Baring’s Bank. Excellent film, by the way. Euron McGregor was quality in

James: 20:32

Absolutely. Watch it. So you’ve got this whole phrase, you know, goals make good servants but bad masters. If you’re using the goal to help you achieve something, that’s fine. But if the goal becomes all consuming and dictates your behaviour, then you’ve probably taken it a little bit too far.

Jimmy: 20:49

Yeah, and I think that’s good. A great saying, James. Goals do make good servants if you use them in the right way. But sometimes the world will change and actually the goal needs to change. So if you don’t adapt and move with what’s the context you’re in and you’re just focusing on still delivering that goal, that can cause you a problem.

James: 21:11

That can cause you a problem. So they do explain bad manners. So, if you’re leading a team, then

Jimmy: 21:22

if you’re leading a team, then I think you really have to consider how you set goals. So getting people to commit to a goal, they must, they’ve got to believe in it. They’ve got to believe in its importance, its significance, that it’s attainable, that it’s ambitious. But you’ve got to get their belief. You can’t just tell them to believe. Yeah.

James: 21:45

and then as a manager, I think it’s really important. This isn’t something that you fire and forget at the beginning of the year. And then people are expected to get on with it. The whole thing about feedback right the way through the year is really important when you’re talking about goal setting. So how do you make sure that people are on track? And the trick there is to have constant feedback about how you’re doing.

Jimmy: 22:06

I think that’s the right way of doing it, but it needs to be handled carefully. I think focusing on how you’re going about doing it, as well as, you know, but focusing on the how, there’s some really great stuff done by a guy called James Clear, who wrote a book called Atomic Habits. And what he talks about around goal setting is that actually, you should focus on the system rather than the outcome itself. So focus on. The, the, the way you achieve something, the method, the, the activity, rather than the goal itself, because if you improve the system, the outcome and the goal will follow.

James: 22:48

Yeah, so it’s all about managing the inputs rather than just massaging the

Jimmy: 22:53

Absolutely.

James: 22:54

So having feedback against how you’re doing against your goals is ever so much more useful than just having feedback at the end of the process, whether you’ve hit your goal or not. Because, I mean, that really is operation stable door. The horse has bolted.

Jimmy: 23:06

Also how you think about the goal. Are you threatened or intimidated by the goal? Then that will reduce performance. But if you if if an individual views a goal that is challenging but achievable, they will perform better. And

James: 23:23

and that really is about the way you as a manager behave. You know, if you scare the life out of your people, then don’t be surprised if they don’t hit their goals. Another thing that really is very important, I think, is having some sort of overarching superordinate goal. So it’s one thing to tell individuals what they should do. But is that really linked to what the organization is trying to achieve as a whole? And actually, is that goal more important than the individual ones? So I know you had some experience of that when you were working at the FSCS.

Jimmy: 23:53

Yeah, And we talked about this previously, but there we set an overall goal for the organization about improving customer satisfaction. And what we did is we got people to set their own goals about how they contributed towards that. So therefore, you know, we, we did give people the, the space and latitude to set a goal, but they knew the general direction that they were trying to achieve, and as a result, the performance massively improved. But a lot of that was because people owned the, the definition of what their focus or how they contributed to the overarching goal.

James: 24:32

goal. Yeah. So then, in summary, what do we think? Goals are good, but short term targets, particularly if you beat people with a stick if they don’t hit them, tend to be bad.

Jimmy: 24:42

targets, particularly if you beat people with a stick and hit them, tend to be bad. Telling people what their goal should be is much more powerful for them to set it themselves.

James: 25:08

And you should also really make sure that your goal is set towards a unifying sort of superordinate goal because you really want teamwork. You don’t want a bunch of individuals fighting over who’s going to hit their target at the year end.

Jimmy: 25:19

end. So, goals can equally be applicable to teams or to individuals. They can be applicable to your work life or your personal life. Let’s finish, James, with a small cautionary tale about goal setting. Stop the

James: 25:35

the boats. No, that’s, that hits all the buttons. It’s smart,

Jimmy: 25:40

specific. Right. So It’s

James: 25:43

Boats or not. Somebody clearly thought it was achievable and realistic.

Jimmy: 25:48

uh, been smoking something, but yes. And

James: 25:50

yes. And it’s definitely time bound, as we’ll find election. Yeah, So there we go. Smart. Smart

Jimmy: 25:59

Does it really solve the problem? And are there systems and processes in place to help you achieve it? So, is it smart? No,

James: 26:08

No, I don’t think so,

Jimmy: 26:10

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. If you have, please subscribe, review and share the podcast with someone else.

James: 26:19

Now, what are we going to cover Next week then?

Jimmy: 26:21

week we are going to be focused on That holy grail of cost versus quality.

James: 26:29

Ah, Something to look forward to. Alright then, have a super week.

Jimmy: 26:33

Thanks everyone.

James: 26:34

Cheers now.

Jimmy: 26:35

If you’d like to find out more about how James and I can help your business, then have a look at our website at ajobdonewell.Com.