Search
Close this search box.

SMART Objective-Setting Isn’t Working!

In our work on performance appraisals and objective-setting one statistic above all others has been most surprising: 86 percent of objectives are not SMART. It is one of the hardest things to get right and managers need more help and guidance than the textbooks are giving.
gdpr

Managers have been advised to use SMART objective-setting at work for years. Now, there is nothing wrong with this approach on the face of it: Specific, Measurable etc but does anyone actually write an objective with these five steps in mind? Do they recite each one in their head and sense-check it against the objective they have come up with? Almost never! It’s as if the word SMART came first and then someone tried to shoehorn five words into it to make a convenient acronym. Contributor Paul Marsh, Managing Director – Lightbulb: Life At Work. Made Simple.

In our work on performance appraisals and objective-setting one statistic above all others has been most surprising: 86 percent of objectives are not SMART. It is one of the hardest things to get right and managers need more help and guidance than the textbooks are giving. Just advising people to ‘make sure the objective is SMART’ is not good enough.

Consider these popular ‘objectives’: ‘Take responsibility for X’, ‘Lead the project’, ‘Be more proactive…’, ‘Share best practice around Y’, ‘Raise your profile!’ Here’s the problem: these are subjective, full of corporate buzzwords and will therefore lead to a ‘were they achieved’ debate; this becomes even more of a problem if the objectives have been tied to reward or ratings! The main problem is that as currently written they are activities and the individual can just say ‘I’ve done that’ for each of them. Obviously, objectives with a £ target next to them do not have this problem as they are not subjective (generally) – but many of our objectives are rightly non-financial. So, what to do? Let’s focus on an amazing secret ingredient that can be injected into your objective-setting efforts…

At work, we get a ‘well done’, pat on the back, recognition, pay rise, promotion etc when we do something that can’t be guaranteed so all of our objectives must incorporate this ‘jeopardy’ element. Kicking a football is an activity, scoring a goal is a result; writing a document is an activity, the document not having to be amended too much by others is a result! So, to make an objective more ‘result- focused’ we add the ‘can’t be guaranteed’ test for someone to aim for.

Television knows this: we watch garden and home makeover programmes and challenges people have been set and we hang around with anticipation to see what the outcome will be: Will they sort the garden in time?; will everyone be ready for opening night?; will he win that competition? It is this can’t be guaranteed jeopardy element that makes the result when it comes something to be congratulated.

Now let’s incorporate this into objective-setting:

‘Lead the project’ becomes ‘Lead the project on time, budget and with no more than one or two escalated issues monthly’

‘Take a proactive approach. So that I am not having to prompt you to take on tasks more than once a day’

‘Raise your profile….. So that two of your ideas are included in another senior managers plan’

‘Attend training on X….  And pass my quick quiz on its content’

Do I even need appraisal objectives? Here’s an answer to the million-dollar question no-one is asking

Our targets, goals and objectives exist in many places: They are in excel spreadsheets, emails, on whiteboards, added to to-do lists and captured as part of meeting action points. They are not all conveniently sitting within performance appraisal templates – yet this is apparently where we are supposed to capture the ‘year’s objectives.  It is rare that managers add to these documents outside of appraisal meetings, quarterly check-ins etc so they do not represent the whole of an individual’s performance. It is also often the case that managers and employees struggle to come up with objectives so inevitably we get unhelpful objectives such as ‘continue to build relationships with X this year’!

The solution is to identify the ‘triggers’ required for an ‘objective’ to be agreed. For example, one trigger might be where something in the role is not currently a habit or like breathing for an individual to do and would ideally need to be so as the next stage of their development – the agreed objective then becomes a regular discussion and review point in 121s towards its achievement.

We suggest identifying up to three specific ‘triggers’ and managers should then ask themselves a monthly question: ‘Do any of these triggers apply when thinking about my direct report?’. If the answer is yes then we need to agree objectives (for as short as a month, as long as a year) that we can review/drill-down on regularly in our 121s because they are worthy of deeper discussion and focus. Not objectives for the sake of having them!


Receive more HR related news and content with our monthly Enewsletter (Ebrief)

Read more

Latest News

Read More

The 3 challenges leaders face when seeking outcomes at pace

28 March 2024

Newsletter

Receive the latest HR news and strategic content

Please note, as per the GDPR Legislation, we need to ensure you are ‘Opted In’ to receive updates from ‘theHRDIRECTOR’. We will NEVER sell, rent, share or give away your data to third parties. We only use it to send information about our products and updates within the HR space To see our Privacy Policy – click here

Latest HR Jobs

University of Warwick – WMGSalary: £23,144 to £25,138 per annum

The Open University – People ServicesSalary: £57,696 to £64,914 + up to £8,000 per annum MRP supplement*

Cardiff UniversitySalary: Competitive

University of Oxford – Oxford Department of International DevelopmentSalary: £28,759 to £33,966 (Grade 5)

Read the latest digital issue of theHRDIRECTOR for FREE

Read the latest digital issue of theHRDIRECTOR for FREE