Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 2

Photo by Ani Kolleshi, Unsplash

Networking Strategies Vol. 2

Understanding Networking

    Networking is one of those general terms that may go misunderstood by individuals.  I believe it extends a little further than the definition of just “acquiring contacts”.  If we think of it in this way though, it is far better than thinking that it is something that it is not.  It has been important in my journey to grow my network that I think of the network as being “mutual contacts with purpose”.  I believe this definition could serve everyone better for several reasons.

    Understanding mutual contacts with purpose requires us to avoid mass-friending and following others on social media.  I believe that defining networking in this way gives us substance to what we are looking for when we refer to the purpose, as well as gives a mutually beneficial relationship with the contact by understanding that you cannot be networked with another without them also being networked with you.

Premature Pitching

    A problem that I have encountered enough to define it as a problem is the act of prematurely pitching your idea to a potential network connection.  This almost always fails in successfully securing another member of your larger team or network because, even if they were on your network, they may not vibe with your current idea.  It is important that we don’t go looking for network connections for professional or even personal use by trying to lure them in with a current pitch or idea.  This is exceptionally important from the entrepreneur’s point of view primarily because when you are salivating over an entrepreneurial idea, this is a natural tendency. 

    The network member relationship must mutually exist between two parties before any ideas, pitches, or opportunities can be presented.  This has been a showstopper for me.  I get all wound up about a recent idea that I have been building on, go to grow my network, cant stop thinking about network applications to this idea, and end up just delivering the idea to someone I am trying to add to my professional network.  Chances are the individual that I’m speaking to thinks that I’m a kook and likens me to a door-to-door amateur vacuum salesman or trying to sell him a life insurance policy via a cold call.

    It is important to deliver your interest in creating a network member relationship during that first conversation and avoid discussing business.  I would also argue that it takes some reinforcement of that relationship further before discussing profession business especially as it applies to entrepreneurial ventures or opportunities.  From the receiving point of a view, if you are trying to sell an entrepreneurial journey cold, the individual on the receiving end of this conversation would probably think that you are very desperate and if you indeed have a following that you have acquired through your methods, you are probably created a cult instead of an organization.

Network Member Relationship Theory

    I like this idea just because it so very well meshes with principles of leadership and team building.  The meat of this meal hovers around individual relationships with members of your network.  It is the difference between a cold call and a warm call from a salesman’s perspective.  This is a theory that describes the process of initially contact a potential future contact, gaining rapport by building a simple relationship, growing that relationship, and then having an integrated network-member that is more likely to actually hear any ideas that you have.  This is important in professional networks because you want as much honest feedback as you can get.  The better you develop relationships with members of your network, the more fine tuned your feedback machine is.

    The powerful application of this is that you can dial in exactly how much effort you plan on putting into various network members before you intend to ask for feedback on an idea or problem.  On giant platforms like LinkedIn, you may find that you must put a good deal of effort to build the relationship of your various connections before you are able to extract any honest feedback.  I have found that smaller forums and message boards of entrepreneurs and professionals usually are more willing to engage you on the short term just because of the common ground of being a part of a smaller community.  I have been capitalizing on this a lot and plan to do so much especially with the number of growing small community forums that exist.

Network Member Roles

    Having a network of contacts is an important part of developing professionally in the world.  We all communicate and exist in and through relationships.  Without doing this would make life a very lonely experience.  As we study building networks for professional purposes, we need to keep some attention on who our network members are and what roles do they fit for us.  When we dive deeper into the realm of building a very large multi-functional professional network, we are going to encounter many different types of contacts and network members.  It will be clear that some members may seem to be better at giving advice and consultation while others tend to be more available to give feedback.  You may find that some are interested in current projects that you are working on and are eager to learn about them.  Some may just be there for the drama, and some may be present to provide negativity or nothing at all.

    The key point in mentioning roles is that while we are focused in growing our network, we should be growing it in the direction that we want to use it.  Over the course of the past year I had read a couple books that mentioned networking, so I sought to network, and network I did.  I was so willing to have followers, network connections, and friends on Facebook and Instagram that I was literally connecting with anyone willing to click the accept button.  The point here is that many of the people who I connected with filled the role of nothing, ergo I never really created a network, rather I created a few internet accounts that had a high number of connections.

    The solution to my problem here was to identify a few roles of network members that I wanted to create and then actively look for network members that could specifically fill that role.  There is still a lot of filtering through people through various attempted connections and contacts, however, it becomes clear when you find someone that can provide at least one aspect of the things that you are looking for.

    It is important to not be too restrictive in this area.  Chances are if we are honest with ourselves and set out to connect only with those who could help push our current entrepreneurial venture forward, we would all end up with a very small list of connections.  I think diversity here is important.  We need to properly identify various areas that can be occupied by networking members.  I think it is important to create an email or contact list and list them individually by their potential roles to be served in your network.  I think that if you are properly developing a network member relationship then you could even discuss this with them, as well as ask them what roles that they are wanting you to fill as a member of their professional network.

    When thinking of specific roles, I like to broadly define many categories.  Mentors, mentees, those that provide consultation and advice, those that provide feedback, those that are able to help promote a venture, those that may be directly interested in helping a venture succeed, potential partners, other dreamers, general colleagues, and even unknown are all roles that I consider when I initially meet someone new.

Conclusion

    Even if we are going nowhere and doing nothing, I think it is obvious that human beings are social creatures.  Having a network of contacts is essential even in the dull activity of nothingness.  If we escalate this thought to the next level of having goals and working towards them, it becomes even more clear that networking is necessary.  Our success depends on the success of our ability to effectively network.  I think focusing on the effectiveness of network should precede focus towards an efficient system of networking.  I do not believe that we should do one and completely avoid the other, however, I believe that one should come before the other.

    I believe that once we are effective at building our network, we need to continue this into a more efficient vehicle for networking.  Efficiency in networking will be a topic of a future content submission.

Using Intuition in Decision Making

Intuitive Decision Making in Leadership and Management

What is Decision Making?

    A fork in the road, options, and choices all afford us the opportunity to make decisions.  Making decisions, and more importantly, making effective decisions is a staple in leadership.  It is difficult to be a leader or manager and continue to make bad decisions.  It is also true that it is hard to continually make good decisions and not be looked at as a leader.  “Decision making is the process of identifying and choosing alternative courses of action.” “A decision is a choice made from among available alternatives.” (Kinicki et al, 2020) 

A System of Decision Making

    Nobel Prize in economics winner of 2020, Daniel Kahneman authored Thinking, Fast and Slow.  In his book he summarized systems of decision making.  We will be focusing on his first system of decision making, known as the “intuitive and largely unconscious” system.  I recommend his book for a read if you are interested in researching this further and have included the link immediately below.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 7th (seventh) Impression edition by Kahneman, Daniel(Author) published by Doubleday Canada (2011) [Hardc

 
Leaders and Managers Making Decisions

    There exists a rational model for decision making, that boasts completely acquiring information, removing emotion from the equation, and coming to the most optimal decision for the organization.  While this is ideal in a perfect world, we often find that this is unrealistic.  We run into problems such as the inability to accurately collect all the information, as well as completely removing our emotions from the situation.  There are many problems and issues here that can hold us back.  Time, money, and values are just three.  Due to this, we look at the way managers make decisions in the real world.

    When making decisions in the real world, in a real organization, managers and leaders turn to a system of non-rational decision making.  While referring to it as non-rational, it may have a negative net effect on us consciously, but all this means is that we are not compiling and analyzing all the information to make the most optimal decision.  We should strive to do this, however, as managers and leaders with deadlines, schedules, and other requirements, it is difficult to do so.

The Satisficing Model

    Herbert Simon, a 1950s economist who received the Nobel Prize described the satisficing model as “managers seeking alternatives until they find one that is satisfactory, not optimal.” (Kinicki et al, 2020)  If we study this, we understand that sometimes there is efficiency in coming to a decision that satisfies the current situation, however, may not be the optimal decision at the time.  There is a level of sacrifice here in that we are not making the most effective decision, but we are making one effective enough.  The trade off is that we are able to then distribute the saved time, money, and other resources to focus on other decisions and tasks that need to be addressed as well.  There may be times that we are able to come closer to making an optimal decision depending on the circumstances, however, there is a large varying degree of middle ground depending on the situation.

    While a lot of organizations and leaders want to believe a real pie in the sky idea that good leaders and managers always make the best, most optimal decisions that they can for their organizations, the truth is that this isn’t always the case.  This is also the case with life in general.  We are often pulled in many different directions, and that results in us not being able to completely analyze all situations and requires us to be able to make a decision that satisfies the current situational goals and necessary outcomes while affording us more time to tackle other problems.  Even in parenting, it is common to shortchange adding up all the nutritional value of baby foods to ensure that the child is getting one hundred percent daily value of all nutrients in lieu of scheduling a visit with the doctor to address a persistent fever.  We are not making a complete sacrifice; however, we are making a determination of what is satisfactory and then moving on.

    Sometimes we shortchange the decision-making process too much.  Situations where we do not give ourselves proper time to analyze even for a satisficing type decision can be referred to as snap situations, where snap decisions are made.  Often, we find ourselves in situations where a quick decision is required and there is no getting around making one.  We cannot allow ourselves to be beat up by these situations, and as I always say, “You win some, you lose some.”  Many times, you will find that a poor decision is better than indecision, especially in leadership.  I would suggest that you try to foresee these decisions so that quick draw decisions are kept to a minimum, as forced quick decisions carry the most risk.

Intuition, the Intuitive Model

    Intuition is known as “going with your gut”, or “Making a choice without the use of conscious thought or logical inference.” (Kinicki et al, 2020) This is a shoot from the hip approach that can be honed to accuracy.  I would describe intuition as the awareness of unconscious self-talk.  Pure intuition carries no knowledge, experience, or expertise in the area where the decision is made and is said to be extremely risky.  In leadership and management, however, we want to be well informed on the topics that we are making intuitive decisions on.  Our experience and expertise in our areas paired with an intuitive approach allows us to make a decision known as a holistic hunch.

    When afforded the opportunity to make a decision that relies on intuition, we should always allow our knowledge in the general area of the decision to play a role in that decision.  This keeps us from shooting in the blind as well as allows us to develop our intuition and increase our chances of using intuition and reaching a close-to-optimum decision.  This takes practice and courage.  Let’s face it, to make a decision in an important or high-pressure setting based on a gut feeling is very bold.  If we continually refrain from using this approach and always take say, a rational approach, our team will quickly notice this lack of intuition and at least subconsciously think it as a mark against our leadership.

1. Recognizing Your Intuition

    The first step at developing our intuitive senses is to be able to accurately identify situations where they should be applied.  We shouldn’t force this search, rather, we should strive to stay mindful in all situations and search our own feelings.  We must be able to recognize when we feel a certain way about something in terms of an innate right-or-wrong.  This is achieved by first finding what just feels wrong.  Everyone has been placed in a situation where everything feels wrong, and your guts are screaming at you to turn and run the other direction.  It is in this place that exists in our mind, but referred to as our guts, that is the platform for intuitive thinking.  Once we recognize applicable situations, we must learn to listen to ourselves, and not only in those situations that tell us to run away.  The most difficult part of developing intuition is knowing when we should strive for something or go for it.  The gut feeling to pursue is usually a much duller sensation than that of the feeling to flee.

2. Using Your Intuition

    Once we can mindfully be aware of when we are communicating with ourselves subconsciously, we are able to use this self-communication to make decisions.  This is powerful because it removes having to use our conscious mental resources to make decisions that are optimum.  This when developed allows us to make optimum decisions with little effort.  A fallacy here is that undeveloped application of intuition is akin to shooting in the dark, and we should seek to develop our intuitive abilities in order to make the best use out of them and take our leadership and management skills to the next level.

    After the initial recognition of intuitive thought, we must extract what we have told ourselves subconsciously.  This is achieved by assessing our feelings about the situation.  With practice it becomes clear, but at first it may just be a feeling that we have to identify through trial and error.  At first it may seem that your intuitive thought is clouded with emotions and other subconscious clutter and that trusting these thoughts will result in very muddy decisions that don’t help much of anyone, much less the organization.

    I recommend at first, we use lower profile situations in order to develop our intuition to a satisficing level before applying it to more important decisions within your life and organization.  This is one of those skills of development that just by acknowledging it gives you a boost in ability to practice it.

3. The Feedback Loop: Did My Intuition Serve Me Well?

    The third step in developing and using your intuition is to then engage in a feedback loop.  This is probably the most important step because this is the step that facilitates development and growth.  We need to recognize that we encountered a situation where our subconscious minds engaged in self-talk that led us to make a decision.  We need to follow this up with how that decision performed for us in order to determine the accuracy of the intuitive gut-feeling. 

    This is important, because if we are making poor decisions based on intuition, we may not be making them on true intuition and instead making them based on other feelings or emotions.  It is as important to recognize that we are making intuitive decisions as much as it is that we do make intuitive decisions, and even more so, because what is the point in constantly shooting in the dark?

The Take Away

    Intuition is a very useful tool to help us as leaders and managers make decisions.  Intuition is subconscious communication within us that analyze problems and produce decisions immediately and without our knowledge.  These decisions and analyses present themselves in the form of “gut-feelings” that persuade us to consciously act or decide.  We can learn to trust our subconscious analytical self and its products as decisions after understanding what they are by remaining mindful of three things; recognizing intuitive situations, actively using your intuition to come to conscious decisions, and then analyzing the results to determine whether your subconscious mind came to a satisfactory conclusion in the form of a decision.  This provides the foundation of developing a powerful skill in leadership.

References

    Kinicki, Angelo, Williams, Brian K. (2020) Management: a practical introduction, 245-        247 


                           

4 Activities to Develop Strategic Thinking in Leaders and Managers

4 Activities to Develop Strategic Thinking in Leaders and Managers

What is Strategic Thinking?

    Strategic thinking according to “Management, A Practical Introduction” by Angelo Kinicki and Brian K. Williams is “Envisioning what might happen in the future and then applying that to our current circumstances.”  Strategic thinkers tend to be more proactive people rather than reactive.  Due to this nature, one of the best skills to develop if you have the tendency to be a reaction person is to develop your strategic thinking.

    The term itself is rooted in strategy and the skill is universally applicable in all aspects of an organization.  Strategic thinking is a skill that is a must for a leader or manager of an organization.  This skill is rarely listed on any applications for management or leadership, because most hiring managers believe that strategic thinking is implied if you are seeking a management level position.  It is true that the strategic thinkers will be the ones up for promotion, while those lacking in the ability to think strategically will be the ones lagging behind.

What Are the Benefits of Strategic Thinking?

    Perspective and orientation are two key benefits of thinking strategically.  This skill allows its user to see a much larger picture which is a precursor for manipulating a situation.  Strategic thinking in general makes you more informed and prepared to handle not only the current situation, but any number of situations that may be produced from the present.  It goes without saying then that strategic thinking produces a problem-solving atmosphere, this becomes visible especially when difficult-to-solve problems present themselves.

Application of Strategic Thinking

    I believe that the application of strategic thinking requires that we be rooted in a business or organization, or at least have one of focus in order to grow our ability to think strategically.  I’m sure that we could apply this to other areas of life, however, with business being the platform here, I will shift the focus of the application of strategic thinking to only businesses and organizations.

Understanding the Business

    Understanding the business that you are involved in is key in order to grow your ability to think strategically.  Recall that strategic thinking is envisioning what may happen and then applying this to our current circumstances.  The best way to predict future scenarios is to thoroughly understand what is going on.  In a business, we must know what should be happening in order to predict what may happen.  This is true for any level in a tall or short organization.

    This is achieved more easily in some businesses than others, because, lets face it, some businesses get incredibly complex.  The more complex the business the more general our understanding should be.  If the business is relatively simple, then perhaps we can afford to investigate understanding it more meticulously.  At first, we should probably begin by studying the mission, vision, and value statements.  We should follow this up by researching the products, goals, and services that the organization offers as well as its methods of marketing, sales, and revenue collection.  Finally, we should study the structure and operations of the business to achieve a thorough understanding.  I would follow this up with any financial statements or reports if they are public, as well as any other written public documentation or media.  Don’t be overwhelmed and take this process slowly, as things get more complex and interwoven the deeper you probe to understand.

    When I first joined my organization and entered a warehouse that I was not familiar with, it seemed like I had entered another world.  The language and product codes seemed some ancient cuneiform text that I couldn’t decipher.  The product codes were some sort of hellish maturity of the binary programming language.  I felt lost.  I knew I couldn’t continue being a part of my organization unless I became familiar with my surroundings, and so I began to understand the business from my perspective outwards.  This is different than originally described, because I used my place in the business as a starting point and then worked my way outwards.  I suggest this to anyone that is plunged into a new business or organization and then acknowledges that they need a deeper understanding of it.  Once I was able to thoroughly understand the area of the business that I was directly involved in, I was able to pick up bits and pieces of information outside of the area.  Still today I collect information daily, ask questions, and repeat what I believe I understand in order to reinforce my knowledge.

Broadening Functional Knowledge

    Broadening your functional knowledge has to do with making connections.  Here we must understand the importance of relationship between ourselves and the industry that we are involved in.  It is important that we engage everything that is a part of our organization.  We need to engage the people, processes, ideas, and events.  This activity is one of doing, and in order to practice this, we need to get out and do.  Key to this is not to remain complacent behind a desk but go take a stab at learning that company software after it has been recently updated so that you are more apt to thoroughly understand how it works.

    Engage the industry itself to practice this activity in order to strengthen your strategic thinking.  Meet people and force conversation about the industry and its specifics.  Dig down deep into some areas so that you understand more of the underlying properties of the functions and tasks of the organization.  Some experts suggest thinking of this as the letter “T”.  The upper portion of the letter refers to your broad amount of general knowledge while the base of the letter represents a tendril of specific information and depth of understanding into a very focused area.  Seek to increase the number of tendrils of specific, functional information.

    I am involved in the logistics side of my organization, specifically shipping.  I could averagely perform the functions of my job just by knowing the job and the things that I need to do.  By understanding some of the specific details of my job, I can predict future situations and pre-formulate solutions to these situations regardless of their complexity.  So long as my understanding runs as deep as the complexity that I am referring to, I will be successful.  This is the essence of utilizing critical thinking and it is here that we unlock its power as it relates to leadership.  A leader skilled in critical thinking appears to be able to act in an instant on situations that would take a normal responding person much longer.  Things like this get noticed.

Setting Aside Time to Reflect

    This activity is often overlooked but remains my favorite.  Setting aside time for reflection is the precursor to strategic thinking.  It is during the reflection time that we grow the areas of our mind that allow us to postulate the scenarios and develop the pre-solutions in order to allow strategic thinking to manifest itself in our actions on the job.  It is the reflection time that allow us to grow our ability to deeply connect thoughts with scenarios and potential outcomes to potential solutions in an arena where we have time to sort out information instead of on the fly as things happen.  This is the proactive platform that strategic thinking affords us.  If we do not take great advantage of time for reflection, we are throwing away our potential before we even have it.

    Aside from developing our strategic thinking skills, time for reflection helps us grow as leaders, managers, partners, and individuals.  This is an important activity for multiple areas of growth in our lives.  The texts that I have read suggest setting aside time at least once a week for critical thinking, however, I believe that some time once a day is ideal.  During this time, you should be thinking about what you accomplished, what you have done during the day, what you could have done, and really focus on the connection of how acting differently would have produced different results.  Really try to crunch how finely tuned changes in your actions would have finely changed (or drastically) the outcome of the situation.  Ponder on how future situations of this flavor are connectable to this situation and how the pattern of actions and events with your decisions could be translated into future manipulation of situations for the overall success of your team and organization.

    I have a lengthy commute to work that affords me about an hour of travel time there and an hour of travel time on my return trip.  Many of my days I spend time in reflection on the previous day during my trip there followed by reflection of the day spent on my return trip home.  This isn’t an everyday occurrence, as I spend a good deal of my time listening to audiobooks from my favorite authors.  I have recently completed “The 101 Collection” by author John C. Maxwell.  I have found that this reflection is incredibly helpful and has fueled my growth as a leader in my organization.  It was during this reflection that sparked my ideas of sharing what I have learned as well as many pursuits in other rewarding areas of life.

The Complete 101 Collection: What Every Leader Needs to Know

Engaging in Lateral Thinking

    This is a concept that was developed by Dr. Edward De Bono.  He had the idea of using this to encourage insight and creativity.  What Dr. De Bono created was the idea of assuming six different mental viewpoints and visualizing the situation using one of these viewpoints at a time.  In his teaching, he refers to them as hats.  He uses color correspondence in order to help the visual connection with wearing a hat and the type of thought that will occur when one is assuming thought from that viewpoint.

1.    A wearer of the white hat would be fact oriented, and their primary purpose would be to gather information required, or state information that they know to be true.

2.    A wearer of the yellow hat would express the view of an optimistic person.  This person would focus on positivity and explore value.

3.    A wearer of the black hat would be the devil’s advocate, presenting opposition and argument.

4.    A wearer of the red hat would view the situation from an emotional viewpoint.  They would use feelings and intuition to conceptualize the situation.

5.    A wearer of the green hat would focus on creative.  This hat-bearer would explore ideas and alternative views to the situation.

6.    A wearer of the blue hat is a type of fail-safe or control.  The blue hat would be the one to make sure that a cyclical fashion of rotation has occurred fairly between all hats.

    Lateral thinking is important because it allows us to step outside of ourselves and view the situation from another location.  It is called lateral thinking because we are still analyzing the same situation, we are just doing it perched above it from a different position.

The Take Away: Making Progress

    If you practice these activities and begin to grow, you will begin to notice things indicative of your growth.  One of the key indicators is your preparedness for odd situations that you would normally be stumped or overwhelmed by.  In leadership and management, we can encounter some really weird and off-the-wall things.  A lot of the time, new leaders especially, will describe leadership as just rolling through a lot of crazy situations and trying to hold on for dear life.  This is one of my explanations of it to my wife when I first became involved in leadership.  A lot of things have changed since then, and I feel like the ride is much more enjoyable now, and much less crazy.  I hope you are able to take away some of the beneficial truths from these activities, and I hope you begin to soon notice that your strategic thinking has improved.

Goal Setting in Leadership and Management for Success

SMART Goal Setting in Leadership and Management for Success

    One of the common topics in leadership and management is goal setting.  I originally thought that this may be something that everyone engages in and is straightforward.  After having sat through management meetings and college lectures where this is the topic for hours long, I have learned that properly setting goals requires some effort on the part of the goal setter.  Setting goals is fundamental to success in exactly the way that you think it would be.  In order to be successful generally, we must be successful in many independent areas.  This doesn’t occur by accident, rather, it occurs because we have achieved many small victories in order to have won a war.

Why Set Goals?

    We set goals for the same reason that we want to achieve things.  If we have an undeveloped mind, we typically just want things, and then we try to get them.  If we further allow ourselves to develop, we will come to a point where we acknowledge that we desire things, and then we state this desire to ourselves before deciding that we will try to get them.  This acknowledgement is very powerful, but more so, the statement to us that we will set out to achieve them is more powerful.  There is something about the acknowledgement and statement within us that really makes manifest the journey to obtain.

    I would dare to say that anything that we want is closer to obtaining if we set a goal to obtain it.  How many of us want what we want right?  Why not unlock the power of achievement that is within all of us just by acknowledging it and stating it?  I believe now after practicing goal setting that this is akin to booting up some software of the mind and allowing it to do some of the work for us.  Certainly, all of the organizations and education centers cannot be misleading us right?

How to Set Goals

    I believe that first we need to understand that the goal itself is just an acknowledgement, and from that it is built.  Many of us set goals without even knowing what we are doing until we become self-aware enough to be able to quantify what we are doing.  In its youth, goal setting is telling ourselves that we want something and that we are going to set out to get it.  In its maturity, it is a multi-step process of acknowledgement and declaration that results in a concentrated effort of action until we either achieve or fail and then continue to further set and attempt to successfully achieve.

    The endgame of goal setting may not be just acknowledgement and statement.  I believe that we must find other ways of declaration to make our most important goals real.  I believe this is usually achieved most simply by forming teams and sharing our goals to which we are held accountable as well as writing them down.  As a student, this happens frequently on discussion boards and in classrooms.  In the workplace, this happens in forums and meetings and is usually a central part of the organization’s activities.

Introduction to SMART Goals

    The first time I heard of the system of setting SMART goals, I recall dismissing it as some sort of motivational talk jargon.  I didn’t really listen and apply it to any of my personal goal setting strategies.  Over the course of attending different conferences, forums, and meetings, SMART goals became a recurring topic.  I realized that this was indeed a thing.  It wasn’t until I took a pair of courses in college where both of them outlined the process that I really started paying attention and adjusting my methods of goal setting in order to try to benefit from the teachings.

    SMART goal setting became a strategy that I memorized just because of the frequency subject matter being passed in front of me.  The third course that I took that outlined the important of setting SMART goals convinced me that this was highly beneficial for several reasons.  Once I began re-evaluating all of my goals under this system, I began to understand why some of the principles of setting a SMART goal is so important.

What is a SMART Goal?

    SMART is an acronym.  SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-Oriented, and Target Dates.  Each one of these letters in the acronym serves a very important purpose in the process of setting a SMART goal. 

Specific

    It is important when we set a goal that we are specific in what it is that we want to achieve.  If we are too vague or the goal is too broad, it may be unclear when we have achieved success.  It may also be impossible to realize that we have not actually achieved the goal.  The specificity is important because it is a benchmark that we have to use in order to determine what it is, and have we obtained it yet.  A bad example of setting a goal would be to “Arrive on time.”  A good example of this same statement would be to “Arrive at work on time”.  Here, we are doing the same thing, however, the latter example gives us a specific event that we want to occur, eliminating the generality of the former goal that we could then apply to anything in our day or week and consider it a success.  Here we could make it to the parking location on time, but never make it in the door, and use some clever wordplay in order to make it sound as if we have achieved the goal.  If we are unable to pinpoint what we have achieved by analyzing what the goal is against the outcome, we may not have nailed down the S for specific in SMART.

Measurable

    Our goals must be measurable.  We can’t lace ambiguity in the wording of our goal when we state it to ourselves or others.  If a goal is too ambiguous with nothing to measure it against, we again will be unable to determine whether or not we have succeeded or failed.  It is important to understand that even though I mention failure so often, that it isn’t intrinsically a bad thing.  If we fail at achieving a goal, so be it, however, we must know that we failed, or we will not be able to improve.  If we use the example from above, a measurable goal must have some assigned metrics.  “Arrive at work on time”, implies that we know what “on time” is, and if are unable to immediately understand that implications, it would be beneficial to us to state it so that it can not be mistaken.  “Arrive at work at 10 pm”.  This is over-simplifying and avoiding a lot of the specifics, but I believe that the flavor has been communicated here.

Attainable

    We must take care to set goals that are achievable.  There is no benefit to setting ridiculous goals for we and putting ourselves through the continued commitment and failure from setting unattainable goals.  A mentor once told me that if we are to choose between setting goals too easy or too hard, opt for the goals too easy, because there is at least a subconscious benefit to achieving an easy goal.  Setting a goal and then failing may be marked by a conscious and/or subconscious net negative response.  We then must use our skills in dealing with failure in order to continue moving forward.  If we are habitually late to work, it may be unattainable to declare that “I will never be late to work again, ever”.  I would much rather set smaller attainable goals, such as, “I will arrive on time to work every day this week”.  Start smaller if it makes sense. 

Results-Oriented

    To make your SMART goal action oriented, we must tie it to the goals.  We need to use the word “To”, and follow it with action verbs such as complete, acquire, or increase.  We should avoid using verbs here that are not direct, such as “engage in” or “begin”.

Target Dates

    This was the most important for me to understand.  It is important to assign a time, deadline, or target date to the goal.  It is important here to not be afraid when doing this.  Sometimes we get caught up in worrying about whether we have given ourselves enough or too much time to complete the goal.  We are correct in thinking that if we haven’t given ourselves enough time that it would make the goal too challenging as well as if we give ourselves too much time, then the goal becomes too easy and not challenging at all.  It is important that we have an attainable ideal time, set it, and work towards it.  Once we set a time for our goal, we begin to see the real benefit of goal setting, because we usually experience the drive to make it happen.  Even if we erroneously set a time and make our goal unattainable, we will see the results produced from the increased drive of putting ourselves on a schedule.

   

Using Goal Setting

    We can use this system to strive for excellence or obtain whatever it is that we may want.  I challenge everyone to begin to be aware of the goals that we set and to more mindfully set them while taking note of changes in our behavior that would lead to an increased success rate of attaining the goals that we set for ourselves.  I would be willing to bet that if you practice and try these methods, that you will notice some positive changes in yourself and what you accomplish over a period.  Keep in mind that this is a skill and we can get better at it in order to more efficiently and effectively accomplish whatever it is that we set out to do.

Tools

    Setting goals doesn’t require any tools.  I would be silly though if I said that I didn’t use any aids when laying out new goals.  I keep a log of my most important goals and have a success network team that holds me accountable to them.  I use many forms of technology including the internet, social media, my iPhone, as well as a daily planner.  Here I have included a link to a very helpful tool for anyone that finds it beneficial to write things down.