The Problem with Goals
OKRs, SMARTs, KPIs, project goals and BHAGs — big hairy audacious goals. There’s an awful lot of goal related language in our work and daily lives. It’s a big deal, no kidding.
So what about it? What’s this problem with goals?
Actually, there are two problems I see with goals. Here’s the first: You quit when you get there.
I do this all the time. I’ve reached the goal. Made it. Then I stop. Being honest with myself, sometimes even when I get close to it, I quit. “Ah, you know, I’m close enough. So I’ll stop there.” It becomes finite and there is no further progress.
The second problem I see is that we live in a world where the information is imperfect. There could well be and often is something better beyond the goal. And you run the risk of missing that better outcome if you’re solely goal focused. So the goal becomes a blinder, blocking out potentially better opportunities.
But people need goals. We all need goals to strive towards — teams do, organisations do, companies do. We cannot effectively live or operate without goals.
A solution to the problem of the problem with goals.
Make it your goal to exceed your goals. Make it your teams’ and organisation’s goal to exceed their goals. In this way find out what’s beyond the goal. And the next, and the next. And so on.
So the goal of goal setting becomes a process of discovery — finding out what is on the other side that relates to or is about you, us, others and the things in the process of moving towards the goal. Continual improvement and growth then become a process of continually setting, exceeding and resetting our goals.
Consider the following the next time you’re setting a goal in pursuit of an outcome you want:
Ask yourself, “Is this goal flexible enough to allow for a wide range of possible responses?”
Look out that the goal doesn’t become an impediment to what’s potentially better
Keep a light touch in holding the goal so that other possibilities remain open
“Set goals not for the outcome itself but for who you get to become in the process.”