The SMART Way to Lead
For my whole life, I have led projects. Projects have a beginning and an end. In order to reach that end successfully, goals are essential. Goals allow us to complete the deliverables that move a project forward. They can be thought of as the strategic bricks that make up a project. For more than 20 years, I have worked in business environments where defining goals and achieving deliverables is what guarantees a paycheck every other week.
I worked in ministry for the other 11 years of my professional life. For the first five years, I led the implementation of an organization from the ground up, and it was a great experience. Achieving our goals was a non-negotiable unless something well justified made us change course, which can happen in any project. After this project, I joined another organization where the concept of "goals" was a little weird. Contrary to project management best practices, this organization thought of goals as something to be desired but not necessarily achieved. One experience I had as the head of a department was meeting with a staff member and questioning the goals he had presented for my approval. My first question was: Is this achievable? His answer was: What do you mean? I desire to do all of this. I am not sure if I can, but I desire. The goals were not achievable, and I knew it. So, as the leader of the department, I said: Please, spend more time on this and make these goals achievable; I want to be able to measure your deliverables. He looked at me and said: This is not how I do goals.
Leaders should be able to lead SMART. In 1981, George Doran, Arthur Miller, and James Cunningham wrote an article titled "There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management goals and objectives" that creates a framework for setting goals. The acronym S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Leaders can measure team deliverables when goals are created with these attributes. Through the process, they can mentor their team to become better in what they do, what they deliver, and how they contribute to the success of projects. Why? Because every organization needs RESULTS. It is how we achieve the deliverables that allow us to complete projects successfully and move our organizations forward.
Are you taking the SMART approach in your leadership?
Eduardo Mendes
Founder and President
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