Goal setting is a cornerstone of a successful organization. Yet, it's not always simple to master. Becoming a pro at setting goals requires equal parts art and science.
And the million-dollar question is: What framework should you use for your endeavors?
Since its origins in the early 1980s, SMART goal setting has kept its pole position as the most popular method. When you master this philosophy, you can turn any lofty, vague goal into an actionable item.
The SMART framework is incredibly versatile – yet it's not free from shortcomings.
In this complete guide, you'll:
Reading this article can be the SMARTest decision you make today. Let's get started.
SMART is an acronym for goal-setting initially coined by George T. Doran in the November 1981 issue of Management Review.
It should be very clear what the goal is all about. As we shall see below, lack of specificity is one of the common traps when setting SMART goals! An example of a non-specific goal is "getting fit." A specific goal: Going to my gym's 8 AM spinning class 5 times a week for the coming month.
Still confused? Some questions to help you hone in on specificity are the 5 Ws: What, who, where, which, and why:
A goal that fulfills the Measurable criteria is expressed in an easy-to-check KPI.
For example, Closing 10 high-ticket sales per month. A non-measurable equivalent would be "closing more sales." The measurable aspect ensures that goals are objective and not based on feeling or intuition.
A goal must also be measurable to determine whether or not the goal owner has succeeded.
Achievable or attainable goals are the opposite of stretch goals. Stretch goals are used for motivational purposes. As such, the likelihood of meeting the goal is less relevant.
On the other hand, achieving goals means that with the resources and time available, you should reach the objectives reasonably easily.
Congratulations – your goals have passed the test for being sufficiently dialed in and bias-free. But… do they actually matter for the results you're looking to achieve?
Goals set on employee, team, and project levels are relevant when they align with overall organizational goals. It's also essential to ask yourself whether now is the right time to achieve this goal.
The whole concept of SMART goal setting fails if you forget to specify the time frame for reaching the goals. Are you looking to finish within the next week or a year? Naturally, that requires significantly different execution plans.
Consider a reasonable time frame for accomplishing the goal, and make sure your team members take action daily to contribute to this objective.
While SMART is an excellent framework for goals related to development and performance, it's not ideal for stretch goals. Stretch goals are meant to be visionary and aspirational and get your employees fired up. In other words, they do not need to be realistic or even relevant to your business objectives.
Suppose your goals are more focused on outcomes or aspirational in nature. In that case, you might want to consider a framework like the OKR goal-setting framework.
➡️ Tempted to cheat on SMART goals? Check out our article on 7 goal-setting frameworks.
➡️ Learn the (crucial!) difference between performance and development goals—only using one of them will turn your organization into a three-legged chair.
SMART goals shouldn't be confused with outcomes. An outcome is something visionary.
For example, a year from now, I will have a senior management position where I get to apply my problem-solving and people skills daily. This will help me build momentum towards my dream of becoming a VP of marketing. I'll also make enough money to upgrade our house.
The above elicits emotion from the employee it concerns. However, as a SMART goal, it does a terrible job.
Performance goals are directly tied to your financial results. That's why it can be tempting to solely focus on those. However, learning goals tend to have a higher completion rate. Completing something gives a sense of accomplishment – which boosts motivation.
Learning goals thus affect your cash flow, too – but indirectly. SMART goals can successfully be applied to both these types of goals, so go(al) ahead!
Goal setting requires balancing the fine line between unrealistic and unambitious goals with the precision of a funambulist. Setting goals that are too aggressive can cause stress and lower employee well-being.
If you want sustainable growth, focus on going deeper into one area at a time or setting lower goals in many areas. It's usually a good idea to laser-focus on one area at a time and set goals that strike the right balance between challenging and achievable. Trying to squeeze your 5-year plan into the next quarter is often a bad idea.
It's easy to understand the drawbacks of aiming too high. Few people think about the opposite: setting too lax goals and the negative consequences.
Goals that aren't big enough can lead to a drop in motivation and failure to achieve organizational objectives.
Suppose your employees are involved in the goal setting process. They can tend to underestimate their own abilities and set goals that feel safe and comfortable. As the manager, you must encourage more audacious goals without imposing them or pushing the limits too far.
Performance coach Bryan Teare captured this eloquently: "The biggest problem with SMART goals is that they are based on your perception of what's possible (measurable) and what you are capable of (attainable). They don't allow for possibility and the unforeseen opportunities that come along when you begin to think bigger."
Having a growth mindset helps you reap the full potential of SMART goals.
A lack of specificity is one of the most common mistakes with SMART goal setting. For example, you may think "learning SEO" is specific enough. After all, it's more specific than learning all you need to become a top digital marketer!
But "learning SEO" is still too vague. Are we talking on-site or off-site SEO? What does hitting the goal look like – becoming a full-fledged SEO expert or understanding SEO well enough to do keyword research for your company blog? Those are two very different objectives.
Now you know what SMART goals are and are equipped to avoid the common pitfalls. Time for action!
But wait… not yet. First, you need to complete the preparation steps.
Maybe you noticed yourself frowning at the criteria. Confused, you asked yourself: what does achievable mean? The answer is that it depends. Investigate what is achievable based on your industry and recent trends (for example, the state of the economy).
The same goes for the other letters: What KPI best measures sales success? What are your organization's highest priorities? And what's a viable time frame for accomplishing a certain goal? Even specificity can be a somewhat subjective concept: what's sufficiently specific for me may be vague for you. Make sure you have reflected on what each of the SMART letters means to you and your organization, and you'll have a headstart when setting goals.
Piggybacking on the last point is the value of consulting stakeholders. Even if you're responsible for setting SMART goals, you don't have to do it alone. Seek input from relevant parties (e.g., teammates, supervisors, and mentors) to ensure buy-in and obtain different perspectives.
Assess available resources, including time, finances, tools, and personnel. If needed, consider increasing your resources. For example, can you negotiate onboarding an extra copywriter or analyst to achieve your team's goals?
Analyze past or ongoing goals for lessons learned and potential areas of improvement.
If you weren't involved in the goal setting process, book a meeting with the responsible manager, if possible. Why repeat past mistakes when you can learn from them?
Determine the most pressing and beneficial objectives to tackle first. As mentioned in the section on common mistakes, focusing on everything at once is usually not recommended if you don't keep the goals low in each area.
So, how do you create SMART goals? With our step-by-step guide, you'll be whipping up your own goals in no time.
It can be tempting to set goals that make sense for your employees without considering how they fit into the broader organization. When you know where you're heading as an organization, it's easier to ensure individual goals align with organizational ones.
Target: Ensuring the broader business goals are part of the planning process.
Key question: Am I up to date with the organizational objectives?
Be as transparent as possible with your team members when formulating your SMART goals.
Target: Improve ownership, employee motivation, and accountability.
Key question: Have I informed my team about the goal setting process?
Specific objectives live under the umbrella of organizational objectives. You'll identify these by narrowing down your initial goals.
Target: Ensuring a clear and concise focus.
Key question: What are our specific objectives?
Determine the numbers or benchmarks that will decide whether or not you've reached your goals.
Target: Define the metrics that will indicate progress or completion. This ties to the Measurable part of the SMART acronym.
Key question: What quantifiable metrics indicate success?
Evaluate the resources, skills, and knowledge required to reach your goals. Note that this gets easier with practice – so if you're new to setting SMART goals, don't let it hold you back! Also, don't hesitate to ask for support with this part.
Target: Ensure each goal is realistic. Balance ambition with realism.
Key question: Given the information I have right now, are these goals realistic?
When the goals are set, confirm that team and individual goals align with broader organizational objectives or personal aspirations.
Target: Alignment between individual aspirations and goals at employee, team, and organizational levels.
Key question: Are the employee goals in harmony with team and corporate goals?
Determine a start and end date for accomplishing the goals. This relates to the T (Time-Bound) in SMART.
Target: Create a sense of urgency and purpose.
Key question: When should the goal be accomplished?
➡️ Learn how to set quarterly goals in our complete guide.
Establishing the goals is just the first step toward reaching them successfully. A critical next step is to set up regular follow-ups where you check in on the progress.
Does anything need to be adjusted for your employees to reach the goals? Maybe you set the bar too low, causing your team to underachieve. Or, the goals are too ambitious, and you need to lower them to prevent employee discouragement and burnout.
Target: Monitor progress continuously. Share feedback and offer support whenever needed.
Key question: Have I scheduled regular follow-ups for the coming quarter?
Modify goals based on changing circumstances.
Target: Stay flexible and adaptable.
Suppose a few key employees leave the team and are not replaced immediately. Considering the new limited capacity, expecting team goals to stay the same would be unrealistic.
Key question: How can I remember to schedule a goal re-assessment session after important organizational changes?
➡️ For 10+ templates to use instantly, check out our SMART goals template examples.
SMART goals are rigid by their very nature. A working environment is something vivid and dynamic. Because of this, what seems achievable and relevant one day can quickly become unrealistic and irrelevant the following day.
💡 Solution: Incorporate regular reviews to adjust goals as needed, such as informal goals and performance check-ins.
Certain concepts, such as innovation or team cohesion, are crucial for organizational success. However, they are difficult to fit into the SMART framework because they are difficult to quantify.
💡 Solution: Balance quantitative targets with qualitative assessments. Over-reliance on goals isn't healthy for a thriving organization and happy employees. But together with qualitative evaluations, you've come a long way!
SMART goals can bias the short-term perspective and, thus, neglect long-term planning and vision.
💡 Solution: Align SMART objectives with broader, long-term strategic goals. Consider mixing in other frameworks that target the longer-term vision, like Big Hairy Audacious Goals (also known as BHAG goals) or the KPIs goal methodology.
The SMART framework is not suitable for all types of goals, especially not for creative or exploratory work. Artistic work is hard to define and quantify, and exploratory work is not necessarily realistic by nature.
That said, SMART goals still apply in many common situations.
💡Solution: Know your frameworks! Use SMART for specific operational goals, but allow flexibility for creative or research-oriented objectives.
The SMART framework may not align well with organizational cultures prioritizing flexibility and innovation over structured goals. In today's modern workplace, more and more companies are moving from rigidity to agility. In that context, SMART goals join the fax machine in the collection of dusty relics from the 1980s.
💡 Solution: Adapt the application of SMART goals to fit cultural norms or use them in conjunction with more adaptable frameworks.
In larger organizations, aligning SMART goals across various departments can be challenging.
💡 Solution: Ensure interdepartmental communication and alignment and tailor goals to department-specific needs.
The SMART framework takes a traditional top-down approach. Even though we encourage involving your employees in the goal formulation, many organizations may skip this step for simplicity. Goals imposed by upper management can lead to a lack of buy-in.
💡 Solution: Involve employees in goal creation to increase commitment and relevance. This can be done through one-on-one manager meetings and skip-level meetings to ensure employees understand and contribute to goal creation.
➡️ Steal our best one-on-one meeting templates to run stellar meetings that get your employees enthusiastic about their goals.
SMART goals tend to overemphasize business performance metrics. Bluntly speaking, the framework doesn't care about how your employees feel on a daily basis, nor about their dreams and aspirations.
💡 Solution: Include personal and professional development goals contributing to employee growth. Zavvy growth plans are a great place for this.
➡️ Have you slept on creating employee development plans? Now is the perfect time to get started! Short-term, performance-related goals ideal for SMART are just one part of the equation.
When you have a solid development plan, you help your employees feel acknowledged and thrive within your organization, positively affecting employee retention.
To further anchor your understanding and accelerate you on the path toward becoming a goal-setting ninja, here are a few examples of how to make a non-SMART goal SMART.
⚠️ Non-SMART goal: "I want to increase sales."
Why it's not SMART: This goal is vague and undefined. What does "increase" look like? How many more sales do you want to close, and by when?
✅ Make it SMART: "I will close 7 sales per week for the next 3 months."
⚠️ Non-SMART goal: "I want to get promoted."
Why it's not SMART: This lacks specificity and a timeline. What type of role do you want to get promoted to? By when? Considering your current position, is the role you aim for attainable within that time frame?
✅ Make it SMART: "I want to get promoted to Senior Multi-Channel Executive for the Dutch team within 6 months."
⚠️ Non-SMART goal: "I want to improve my communication skills."
Why it's not SMART: How will you measure "improve"? This goal is vague.
✅ Make it SMART: "I will take the non-violent communication course offered and practice my skills by volunteering to host our weekly meeting at least twice during the next quarter to improve my speaking confidence."
➡️ Check out our complimentary resources with more examples: employee SMART goals examples and leadership SMART goals examples.
SMART goals give clarity and direction to help employees prioritize. They are precise and help reduce feelings of overwhelm.
For example, an employee has a SMART goal of increasing the company's social media engagement by 20%.
Suppose they have two competing items on their to-do list: a backend task (like creating a reference manual) and actively engaging with the company's social media account audience. It's easy to see which alternative will lead them closer to their goal.
When set correctly, SMART goals are attainable. That doesn't mean they're comfortable, though! And growth happens outside of your comfort zone.
Since the goals are realistic, it's harder to come up with excuses. SMART goals can thus be a great way of driving employee growth.
Relating to the previous point, clarity is a driver for motivation. Since SMART goals are clearly defined, they can help motivate employees by removing the roadblocks of ambiguity and vagueness. The measurable aspect also helps employees stay motivated.
For example, let's say you set a goal of 10 sales/month for one of your team members. If they are at 8 sales and there are only 2 days left of the month, it's easier for them to stay motivated and put in some extra effort when they have a goal to work toward.
Goals within the SMART framework are measurable. Thus, they can clearly indicate where you're falling short compared to targets, allowing for fast and concrete actions.
SMART goals encourage employees to have discipline and become self-aware. Suppose they fall short of reaching their goals. In that case, it's hard to blame someone else: they need to self-reflect and take accountability for the situation. This can also include asking for more support and additional resources.
It's important to remember that setting SMART goals is an iterative process rather than one-and-done. If the goals were too ambitious, it helps you understand what's attainable right now, considering the available resources.
Now, you know how to set SMART goals and what they can do for your organization. But the elephant in the room is the amount of planning and administration involved in the process.
How will you coordinate everything and ensure you don't just stop at setting goals, but keep monitoring them, reassess them whenever needed, and see how your goals turn into business gold?
That's where Zavvy can help.
Zavvy is an all-in-one employee enablement platform that handles core functions such as onboarding, performance reviews, goal-setting, growth and development, and more.
No need to sweat it with integrations between software that refuse to communicate with each other or "permission denied" spreadsheets that haven't been opened since 2018.
Here are our recommendations that can massively help you set, organize, and reach your SMART goals:
📅 Book your demo today to see how your organization can save hours and headaches with Zavvy. We're ready to help you reach your goals – whether or not they're SMART.
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