Goal setting

- Have you ever heard of smart goals? They're specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based. They're also usually pretty boring and uninspiring because smart goals can limit your thinking. Smart goals tend to be small and more task oriented, they're usually assigned to you by your boss. These are things like do the marketing report by Friday. Checking off tasks are table stakes. Self-leadership requires more intentionality in the goal setting process, it's a mental shift from being tactical to being strategic. To be clear, you still have to check those boxes, but this is layering on a longer, more strategic view. A strategic goal is something like, improve my ability as a leader, increase organizational innovation, or accelerate our competitive differentiation in the market. Strategic goals are all about looking into the future and deciding where you want to focus your attention. What will make an impact on your organization, your relationships, or your career trajectory? When you decide on a strategic goal or two, it's crucial to extrapolate out the behavior that will increase the likelihood of meeting that goal, here's why. When we have a seemingly gauzy goal, like improve my ability as a leader, it's really easy to let yourself off the hook, or to blame outside circumstances for why it's not happening. There's no specificity to what good looks like, and there's limited control on the progress you can actually make. Zooming in on behavior in your control, the input drastically increases the odds of success, the output. Let's go back to our strategic goal of improving your ability as a leader. Some behaviors within your control would be things like, allocate 15 minutes of thoughtful prep before each one-on-one, have a career conversation each year with the people on your team, listen to a leadership podcast on your way to work every Friday. These behaviors are what enable you to reach that goal. The reason the smart framework makes people so tired is because it jumps right into the specifics, without the bigger, longer range goal at the top. Tethering your behavior to that ultimate goal of becoming a better leader, reminds your brain why these behaviors actually matter. Your personal motivation plays a big role here. Think about why you care about this goal, why it matters to you. And when you face an obstacle or a challenge, are you personally motivated enough to overcome it? If you can't get at least a little bit excited about it, trying to find something else to focus on. Let's look at another example. Let's say you have a strategic goal to increase organizational innovation. Well, that goal depends on a lot of other people having the time and energy to innovate, but what's within your control? That would be behavior like, going out of your way to be encouraging when someone talks about a new idea, proactively seeking feedback from beyond your immediate team on your ideas, model carving out time for longer range more creative projects. Having a meaningful career and making an impact is not possible if you're just reactive to tasks that someone else delegates to you. Zoom out, think about how you can make a difference and focus on the behavior that will get you there.