The Secret to Raising Your Game

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A recent article with legendary runner, Utta Pippin, revealed her take on
what it takes to perform at an extremely high level.   Note she’s the first
woman to win the Boston Marathon three times in a row.  She adds an 
interesting spin at the end that the interviewer doesn’t catch.  It’s huge. 

For those of you who don’t have the time to load and watch the video,
Utta starts by underscoring using familiar SMART goal criteria for
getting in shape and accomplishing other goals.

She references the need for goals to be believeable, broken down into
concrete, acheivable, sub goals or milestones, and tied to specific
measurement points, e.g. translate “I’m going to get in shape” to “I’m
going to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks.” 

All probably stuff you are familiar with, but here’s the sleeper.

When she talks about running she lights up, she’s talking about something
she enjoys and she let’s all of us in on a little, well big, secret. 
FIND A WAY TO MAKE IT FUN.

What if that’s the key to every change moving forward.  Maybe the
word fun is to limiting, but we all need to find a way to make it pay-off,
to make it rewarding… but get this… along the way, not just at the end. 

Ah, so if you set out to accomplish something, and you don’t find a
way to make it anything but a grueling endurance process, your
likelihood of seeing it through to the end drops like a rock. 

Got it.  

Hey let me extend that concept just a bit more for you, especially as
it relates to the world of work.

I am convinced that for people to be high performers at work they
consistently need 4 things, just like every high performance athlete.
Watch what’s 4th on the list, it may surprise you.

1. We all need a game plan, what’s next, what works, what’s critical
2. We all need a scoreboard, some way to tell if we are getting ahead
     or falling behind
3. We all need a game clock, some way to tell how much time we have
     left to work with.

and then there’s number 4.

4. We all need recognition.   We’ll all need a pay-off.  You do, I do,
and that can include a number of things, but funny enough getting
recognized by someone you trust and value, often stays with us the
longest.

Bottom Line:
To achieve goals there are a pretty consistent set of criteria that work, called
SMART.  To play at a high level in the world of work, we need a similar
framework, including a game plan, a game scoreboard and a game clock…
but just as much as anything else we need a pay-off that ultimately hinges
on recognition.  Are you getting enough recognition?  Do you take
advantage of giving it to others and in so doing supporting them playing
at a high level?  Let me know.

Links:
Working Strategically and the 3 Legged Stool of Outcome, Game Clock & Value
Most of What You Have Read about Smart Goals is Wrong

Friday, December 9th, 2011
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SMART Goals, HARD Goals and LOST Goals

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We’re getting close to the end of the year, start of the next.  For many of us,
that inevitably brings up the topics of goals, past and future.   I’m writing
this blog about the topic of lost goals… you know, ones that you set but
didn’t really get to in the past year.

Quick, how do you avoid losing track of goals, e.g. acheive goals?

There’s a lot of literature on goals, goal setting and
the best way to go about it.   All of which would
suggest that if you follow some certain
methodology, you won’t lose track of your
goals, and in fact achieve them.

One well know approach for avoiding lost goals
is captured by the acronym SMART - which has been used to implicitly
define how one should structure goals so that you don’t lose your way
in achieving them.   You know; specific, measurable, actionable, realistic
and time bound.

More recently Leadership IQ has come up with their preferred
acronym, suggesting that SMART goals is actually a dumb approach.
Their acronym, HARD, suggest that in order to elicit and/or support
follow through, goals should be:
1. Heart felt
2. Animated, easy to visualize
3. Required – critical to continued existence, not just a formality, and
4. Difficult – forcing the achievers to go beyond current achievement levels.

Is there really an approach that works best?  And if so why isn’t
everyone using it so they don’t lose track of their goals? 

If you do a quick Google search, you’ll find that if you do a
search on lost goals, 80% of the listings are related to weight loss, or
the lack of completing weight loss goals.  Does that mean all the people
trying to lose weight aren’t using the right SMART or HARD approach?

If you look beyond the personal or organizational level,  it seems the
World (all of us) didn’t fare much better at global goals.  At this fall’s
world summit, the Independent’s headlines framed the World’s success
at achieving its 10 year goals as: World Fails to Deliver on 8 Key Target Goals… 
the details of the summit supported the title quite well.

These goals all seem to fit the HARD acronym, yet after 5 years the
lack of more progress is frustrating.  What gives?  Why such a big
disconnect between setting goals and delivering outcomes?

What if the approach does matter, having something heart felt would
certainly seem to be a better predictor than a ho-hum attitude?

But what if there were really two variables that are the actual predictors
of outcomes, neither of which are dependent upon approach?

I think the two variables you need to track are T & O.  Time and Obstacles.

It’s the same two issues, the same two questions, with whomever
I’m working, at the personal or the enterprise level, nationally or internationally.

Whether or not goals will be achieved or lost, given that they are
grounded in reality, is directly attributable to whether people will:

1. Spend the time it takes
2. Remove the obstacles encountered, e.g. make the changes necessary

Summary:

There are multiple approaches to achieving (versus losing sight of) goals.
Current acronyms of SMART and HARD outline such approaches.  However,
I see goals get achieved or lost based primarily on just two variables, Time 
and Obstacles.  What people and organizations do with these two variables,
starting day one, is my best predictor of whether goals will be lost,  with the
specific approach being less significant.  Again, it’s not the approach, it’s
 T & O  – the willingness to put in the time and remove the obstacles.

Links:

Most of What You’ve Read About Smart Goals is Wrong

Goal/Outcome Based software for running your team… your business

Thursday, December 9th, 2010
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Most of What You’ve Read About Smart Goals is Wrong!

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What if most of what you have read about “SMART” goals is inaccurate?
Where SMART refers to Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and
Time bound, and supposedly correlates with likelihood of success.  Well
a recent study by LeadershipIQ suggests that our approach to goals is
mis-guided, out-dated and in need of a major course correction.  Keep
reading and I’ll cover a few things you need to know.

First of all the study by Leadership IQ is available on the web in a brief,
entitled “Are Smart Goals Dumb?” .  The study is a bit weak because it’s
based, as far as I can tell, on opinion surveys, not outcome studies, but
there are several excellent take-aways:

1. There’s no magic to setting SMART goals, and the whole process of
setting goals based upon SMART definitions is a well intentioned
methodology that is not correlated with “kicking butt” or however else
you want to describe high performance.

2. The top 3 of 8 characteristics people attach to compelling goals, e.g. ones
that people feel will lead to their success in achieving great things, are:
    1. Being able to vividly picture how great it will FEEL when the
        goals are accomplished.
   2. The goals require learning new skills to be accomplished.
   3. The goals are absolutely necessary to help the company.

3.  People with goals that match the top 3 criteria above are
significantly more engaged with their work and their employers,
than their counterparts.

Both our culture and the writer of this article frequently lapse into the
thinking that “goals” make people do something.  Here’s a quote as an
example, “we discovered that people’s goals are not particularly helpful.”  

I find that humorous, as I see goals as a tool, and quite distinct from who’s
operating the tool.  Goals can be a focusing agent, a framework for the
needed discipline to rise to another level, but ultimately it’s us, people,
who make the difference, goals don’t do it for us. 

That being said, LeadershipIQ came up with some interesting and I believe
quite accurate, characteristics that when attached to goals, suggest that
people’s behavior will fall in line with their goals. 

I didn’t see them address the motivator of pain, but here’s something that
jumped out at me.  The largest predictor for you or me accomplishing
what we write out as a goal, is our anticipation of “feeling great” when
we accomplish it.

How many corporate goals have you seen that you believe people will
jump up and down for joy when they accomplish it? 

Can you hear the American Idol buzzer going off as you read that? 
This is an entirely new method of defining a working goal.  It rules out 
most of what we see as goals in the world of work, or at least makes us
redefine them as something other than the goals that support
LeadershipIQ’s definition of “achieving great things.”

That’s right.   We need to feel something, anticipate something pretty big
and positive, something that stretches us, and we need to see that it’s
absolutely necessary…  Otherwise we’re just going through the motions
of goal setting, whether its a SMART goal or not. 

Wow, the universe of work goals shrinks dramatically when you start using
those three filters.  Actually the three filters are all emotion based.  Did
you catch that?  Look at the three emotions with me:

1.  The first emotion is the anticipation of feeling very good, not
just satisfied, but inspirationally very good.

2. The second emotion is one of being challenged, and the positive
stress it produces.

3. The third emotion is a link to helping.  We have to feel like it is really
going to help, and help in a way that’s absolutely necessary, even better
if it is a “do or we’re out of business” scenario.

Most goals I see in the workplace don’t pass these three litmus tests. 
Do yours?

Maybe we should reclassify or rename goals in the work place for what
they really are, e.g. objectives, defined outputs, specifications for
compliance, a means of applying metrics.  Beyond that, what would work be
like if you had goals you had a lot of emotion about?  Makes you think,
doesn’t it?

Bottom Line:
LeadershipIQ conducted an interesting, valuable study on goals, suggesting
that the SMART methodology is not what predicts our likelihood of
achieving stated goals.  Instead its a series of 8 factors, of which the top 3
are based upon the emotions of anticipated joy, positive stress, and helping.
Taken seriously, it challenges everyone setting business goals to reinvent
their approach, or redefine goals as what they are for most people, simply
a form of compliance or a measuring device.  Maybe to achieve goals we
need positive, engaging emotions, to respond adaptively and timely to
change, we need pain or discomfort.

Links:
The Hazards of Talking about Your Goals
What Makes Us Follow Through

Thursday, October 14th, 2010
Posted in goals | 2 Comments »

The Hazards of Talking about Your Goals

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Is there an inverse relationship between talking and doing – when it comes
to achieving goals?  Does talking about goals help solidify them or jinx them?
I read an interesting blog by Julian Mendoza commenting on Derek Silver’s video
suggesting you should keep your goals to yourself and not talk about them.
It’s an interesting point and most of the comments to his blog didn’t get
what Derek was talking about, so let me take a couple of minutes to
cover the topic… it could be very advantageous for you.

First of all the facts.  Derek cited three prominent social scientists
(Kurt Lewin, Vera Mahler & Peter Gollwitzer) who addressed this area,
noting that talking about goals, especially when acknowledged by
someone else,  creates a comforting sense that “feels” like the goal has
already been accomplished, certainly underway, and serves as a
substitution for the actual work needed to accomplish the goal.  In at least
one study, it served to make the “talkers” less likely to follow through on
the steps needed to reach a goal.

From reading Derek’s blog, you might think that talking is the problem.
It’s not.

It is, instead,  the comfort that goes along with talking   Let me explain.

First of all when we talk about our goals, we often experience a relief in
confession and self disclosure (which is comforting), plus we get the
positive effect of it “feeling” like we are already on the way.

Second, most people when hearing someone else talk about a goal, engage
in some form of listening, agreeing, supporting and/or mildly comforting
behavior.    Most people, if you were to announce you were going to get in
shape, lose weight, become more effective at work, etc… wouldn’t say,
“Yea, it’s about time, you are really late in doing something about that!”
Although it might be better if they did.   No they say something comforting
and in so doing actually contribute to helping us not achieve our goals.

What?  Saying something supportive actually hinders the person needing
to make a change?  Yep.

From my perspective, we all need a certain level of pain going on to
accomplish a goal.  We have to want it.  And “wanting it” is better served
by being in touch with the pain of not achieving the goal, then it is with
the benefits of getting there.  Just the way we are wired, although both
are important.

Goals that represent behavior change, are reinforced by both a pull
(positive gain) and a push (negative impact if we stay where we are at).
Comfort, tends to reduce the negative, it turns down the heat, it reduces
our primary motivator and our brain does something even funnier with it.
We think that the comfort generated from talking about it means we’re
almost there,” hey we’ve started haven’t we?”  And the fact that someone
else acknowledges our goal, creates a “substitutional reality” (as Kurt Lewin
would define it where we substitute the discussion of talking about it, for
the reality of achieving it) that further reduces our ability to access pain
to drive us toward a goal.

If  you think about all the time spent on talking about goals, time spent in
meetings, forums, you realize there are a lot of opportunities to derail
ourselves.  So be careful about talking, such that it doesn’t act to derail
you from achieving  the goals you have operating in your life today.   Be
careful that you don’t give in to the comfort of “talking about it,” and delay
putting in the needed action steps to move you down the path.

Bottom Line:

Talking about your goals, to the extent it reduces some of the pain that is
motivating you to accomplish that goal, is inversely related to achieving
goals.  Be careful when you talk about what you’re going to do, what you’re
going to accomplish, that you don’t confuse the comfort of self disclosing
with the satisfaction that comes from actually making progress, or the
comfort of validation and listening from others, as a sign that you’re
already almost there.

Links:

What makes us follow through?

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
Posted in goals | 3 Comments »

What Makes Us Follow-Through?

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Recently I read a cool blog by Julian Mendoza on the decision making behind
acheiving or following though on goals.  That really came to life yesterday
when I was working with a charity on their strategic plan.  It brought to
light in a very simple fashion what makes us move… whether that’s
setting up new goals, or following through.  A majority of the time it
is contained in one word… do you know what it is?

I’ll expose it in a minute, but first a bit of background.

Julian, cited a blog from Lifehacker that has both helpful and misleading
information on the topic.  Note the misleading information is from
Psychology Today.

Here’s the quote: “It’s easy to set goals, but the chasm between saying
you’re going to do something and exercising the willpower and self control
required to actually follow through can be enormous. Psychology Today
recommends setting a mental budget to improve your self control.”

OK, so we all know there’s a gap between saying and doing when it
comes to goals, new years resolutions and strategic plans as examples.
We see it all the time with individuals and organizations adopting ManagePro
to assist them with what really amount to making a change in how they work.

For most of us, Psychology Today has it all wrong.  Here’s why.
Julian alludes to it when referencing the work of Nobel winning behaviorist
Kahneman, who confirmed the insight that we give more weight to a negative
consequence, than to a higher-probability reward – i.e. humans are
inclined to be risk averse.

If you combine this with Tony Robbins popularization of the Pleasure and
Pain model to circumscribe emotional drivers… you get to a very important
answer on what motivates us to make a change.  We are more reactive to
pain than pleasure.

For most of us the most common reason we move is contained in one
simple word – PAIN.    Yes, having a mental budget for how much you
take on is a helpful concept I suspose, but it’s not in the same league
for predicting follow through as pain is.

I might add that in my experience it is usually sustained moderate to
moderately high levels of pain.  Minimal amounts of pain tend to
dislodge attempts to create change.  High levels of pain tend to scramble
our coping mechanisms, resulting in reactions but not very well
structured change.  Moderately high pain, when sustained, becomes
a driver for change as long as we can’t alleviate or ignore it easily.
“Punch pain” as some call it, doesn’t usually do the trick.

Back to the strategic planning session with the charity.  Why were
they in my office this week and not last month, last quarter, a year
ago…?   Not because today’s strategies and  ideas had better pay-offs.
The reason was pain. 

The challenge for all of us, whether its emotional pain, physical pain or
business pain, is that we are pretty good at finding a way to reduce the
pain level pretty quickly, and in so doing remove a very important
driver for the needed change.  We get busy on next, we focus on something
else, we tell a confidant, we complain to a co-worker.  All of those techniques
work to reduce pain, and in so doing reduce the ultimate driver for change.

Bottom Line:
Humans are risk averse, and that means avoiding or getting out of
pain is a stronger motivator than achieving something positive for
most of us.  If you are in the pain resolution business, whether as a
leader or a professional, make a note to yourself to be careful not
to be in a hurry to alleviate pain before the needed changes are in
place, as it will likely derail the change process.

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
Posted in goals | 2 Comments »