Are Your Objectives SMART Objectives

This week as part of a training seminar I was involved with the issue of objective setting was covered off and I have to say that it really never fails to amaze me how totally unsophisticated firms are when it comes to proactively setting their own business objectives.

 

It may be cliche to say this, but you need to know where you're going to get there.

But beyond actually doing the objectives, the key is to set appropriate objectives that meet all of the SMART objective criteria.

Perhaps the best way to qualify this is with a real world example that occurred to me some years ago whilst I was still working in the pharmaceutical arena.

In this specific example the firm in its wisdom had said that it required all its selling stagg to achieve a dollar growth of 80% for the calendar year.

Now let's kook at which of the SMART criteria this objective met and which it didn't meet.

Well it was certainly specific as it tells you simply you need to grow by 80%.  Tick.
I also have to say that the objective was measurable as you knew what you earnt last year and you know what you're earning this year.  Another tick.

Was the objective relevant? Again the answer is yes as it relates directly to what our business was about, and was it timely. Again yes it is timely bas it gives a specific time range that the objective needs to be achieved in i.e. the calendar year.  Four out of four ticks.

Ok then the last criteria, was it attainable.   At the time I was the number one performing representative in Australia and had a growth rate of 40% compared to a national growth rate of 20%.
So despite being double the rest of the nation, I was only 50% to budget.   So was it attainable ?
Sadly no. 

Take out point.  Even if you have four out of five ticks, if you don't have all five your objective is of no use and will actually hurt your organisations motivation, morale and ultimately performance.
File this under a cautionary tale.

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.