Don't Get SMART

Words: 662 Reading time: 2 minutes 12 seconds

Read anything on setting goals these days and, sooner or later, you’ll be told that all goals need to be “SMART”. If not, then there is no hope for you. The goal is not well set and you have little chance of achieving it.

Here, at random, are some of those promoting that view:

‘Setting goals…means creating a written plan that includes reasonable and measurable long-term and short-term objectives. It means setting SMART goals.’ Annette Richmond

‘The SMART acronym is used to describe what experts consider to be "good" goal statements’ Rodger Constandse

‘A key determinant of an individual's success or failure in meeting a goal can be summed up with one small word (or, more accurately, acronym): S.M.A.R.T.’ Christina Morfeld

Baloney!

A big problem with being SMART is finding any agreement on what the acronym stands for. Here are a handful of alternatives for each letter:

S - specific, significant, stretching, systematic, synergistic, simple, self-owned

M - measurable, meaningful, motivational, methodical, memorable, maintainable

A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented, ambitious

R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented, resonating, responsible, reliable, remarkable

T - time-based, timely, tangible, trackable, thoughtful

If my maths is correct that gives 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 3,125 possible combinations. Good luck!

I will look at each of these pompous precepts in a series of later blogs, but for now, let’s look at one example where SMART – whatever its constituent parts – offers no help at all. Indeed, it’ll probably get in the way.

Nic Rixon tells the story of a restaurant owner who was shot twice in the course of a robbery. As he enters A&E the restaurateur can see in the eyes of the staff that they don’t think he will make it. He is asked, over and over again by the medical team, if he is allergic to anything. But he can’t speak due to the trauma. As they wheel him into the Operating Theatre they ask him one last time and he gathers all his strength and yells, “Bullets!!!”

At that point everyone looks round and immediately everything speeds up. In that moment everyone’s belief changed from “he’s gonna die” to “we have a fighter”. The man survived.

Now that man had a goal. His whole existence turned on that one outcome. He did not have to get SMART about it – the goal was too important for that. He had neither the time, nor the inclination to work it all out, write it all down, set milestones and measure progress. Had he done so, he would probably be dead.

None of that was necessary. And, outside of sheer physical and surgical limitations, there was no doubt about the desired outcome.

For me that says a lot about goals, whether we have any hope of achieving them and what that may take.

When nothing else matters in the world other than your goal, then SMART is irrelevant. SMART is unnecessary. SMART may even delay you and make the goal less likely, rather than more likely.

The secret of reaching your goal is picking one that really matters that much to you.

More time would be better spent on finding a goal that, for you, is an all-consuming passion, instead of figuring out how to make some second-rate, minor league, lesser goal come about by using a version of being SMART.

The people who come to mind as being both memorable and remarkable do so because they devoted their life and their spirit towards achieving what we now regard as exceptional. And often, they are only inspirational looking back. At the time they did not plan and did not expect to arrive where they did. They were not SMART.

Some examples include Albert Schweitzer and Mother Theresa, the Beatles and Beethoven, Alexander the Great and Boudicca, Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci, Dante and Darwin.

It's the weight of our feelings that lets us know how important something is. We just have to be smart enough to recognize them.

Ordinary or Awesome?

Words: 596 Reading time: 2 minutes 0 seconds

Have you ever wondered how much influence we have over the experiences we enjoy? For example, in your daily interactions with people, what level of response do you get – ordinary or awesome?

Of course, in theory, we would all choose awesome. Reality is sometimes different. While awesome would be…well, awesome…it could take a little longer to deliver. Are we prepared to wait? Is ordinary all we wish to spare the time for, so we grab that and run?

If awesome means stating our demands and creating a bit of a fuss – a very unBritish thing to do – are we predisposed to avoid making a scene? In how many cases do we opt for a quietly dissatisfied existence?

A picture of what is awesome and what is OK is firstly conveyed and then established partly by the customer – you and me. Do we encourage better than average and a tendency to awesome by the praise, thanks and recognition we bestow? Or do we grunt and go when the goods and services obtained for our hard-earned money reach a barely acceptable level?

The service and attention given to customers in major retail outlets provides a useful case study. The move to pre-packaged and self-service has been inexorable ever since I was lad growing up in London.

Now, we can shop in most major chains without ever having to react face-to-face with any of their staff. Not only do we search out the items on the shelves, we even take the goods through an automatic checkout, pay through a slot-machine arrangement, bag all our purchases and take them to the car ourselves.

Oh, and please put the trolley back where you found it, our employees are too busy to be bothered with serving our customers. And our customers are so dazed and distracted by the mindless, windowless warehouses they now shop in, that don’t hardly complain.

A quick aside: have you ever noticed a clock in a supermarket? Thought not. Would you like to guess why?

How did it ever come to this?

If we want awesome and we keep getting ordinary we have to accept part of the blame. We have allowed conditioning and habituation to establish mediocrity as somehow normal. It doesn’t have to be, but nothing will change unless we do so first. If we keep allowing what we’ve always allowed, delight will decline as it’s always declined.

We can actively consent to being offered something more. And companies prepared to offer more will be well placed to capture the market. We observed this phenomenon with the advent of The Japanese TV. The TVs being made here and in the USA at the time were prone to breakdown. That was normal. A whole industry was founded on the need to repair them.

Then the famed reliability and quality of the Japanese offering became available. People voted with their wallets. They wanted awesome as soon as it became available. The TV repair industry was all but wiped out.

The same happened with motorcycles. Much the same has happened with cars.

If we know that accepting awesome is so much better than ordinary, then we need to expand the paradigm to other areas of our lives. Every interaction is an opportunity. The chance for change is never gone; we can begin whenever we wish.

We have a huge influence over the experiences we enjoy – often much more than we realise. Give someone else the opportunity, the room and the permission to be awesome. You may be surprised by the result.

And we can choose to be awesome too.