Vision to Action Direct attention to relevant activities Affect - PDF document

3/11/2014 Vision to Action • Direct attention to relevant activities • Affect intensity of effort • Affect persistence The Power of Goals • Goals: Outcome ‐ Based & SMART Dr. Rob Sheehan, Academic Director, Executive MBA Programs Outcome vs Activity SMART Goals* “To complete 50 sales calls to new prospects • Specific during the third quarter.” • Measurable • Attainable • Relevant • Time ‐ bound *Most traditional version 3 “Attainable” Goals “Attainable” Goals • Set with at least 80% chance of success • What might be the downside of setting goals that are reasonably “Attainable?” • Sounds reasonable – failure can be followed by negative consequences 1

3/11/2014 “Attainable” Goals? The • What might be the downside of setting goals that are reasonably “Attainable?” Performance • Goal research: – The more difficult the goal, the higher the level Paradox of performance. SMART Goals* Aggressive • Allows you to maximize performance, but with • Specific a higher chance of failure • Measurable • If you are a boss & you want to use Aggressive • Aggressive goals, check your rewards system. If you • Relevant punish failure, people will not want to be • Time ‐ bound aggressive. Reward “performance” vs. goal accomplishment *Doug Smith version Attainable Goals SMART Goals ATTAINABLE  Best when the priority is to accurately predict performance of the current system vs.  Good for generating “quick wins”  Good for Learning Goals in new domains AGGRESSIVE  Good for a team that needs to build confidence Which SMART formula is best? 11 2

3/11/2014 Aggressive Goals Think of a Goal • Best when the priority is to maximize the performance of the current system Think of a goal you are working on • Maximize intensity of effort right now which meets the • Maximize persistence SMART criteria. • Performance vs Goal Attainment must be rewarded Great Leaders A New A for SMART* • Specific “Great Leaders Have a Healthy • Measurable Disregard for the Impossible” • *Almost Impossible • Relevant • Time ‐ bound *Rob Sheehan version Impossible . . . . . Impossible . . . . . “While theoretically and technically “Space travel is utter bilge.” television may be feasible, commercially and financially I ‐ Sir Richard Van Der Riet Wooley, The Astronomer Royal, 1956 consider it an impossibility.” ‐ Lee Deforest, American Inventor (1873 ‐ 1961) 3

3/11/2014 Impossible . . . . . Impossible . . . . . “Well informed people know it is “We must not be misled to our own impossible to transmit the voice over detriment to assume that the untried wires and that were it possible to do so, machine can displace the proved and the thing would be of no practical value.” tried horse.” ‐ Maj. Gen. John Kerr, U.S. Army (1878 ‐ 1955) ‐ The Boston Post, Editorial, 1865 Bullet Train Thinking Impossible . . . . . • It used to take more than six hours to travel by train “Rail travel at high speeds is not from Tokyo to Osaka. If the Japanese executives had possible because passengers, unable said to their engineers: “I want you to reduce the time to six hours,” the engineers would have instinctively to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” thought in terms of small improvements , perhaps in the way they boarded passengers and unloaded baggage. But instead, the Japanese executives set out a ‐ Dionysius Lardner, English Scientist (1793 ‐ 1859) challenge to reduce the time of the journey to three and a half hours. Faced with such an “impossible” goal , the engineers and designers were forced to reexamine the most fundamental assumptions governing rail travel in Japan. The result of this reexamination was the bullet train. (Jack Welch) You can’t think outside of Traditional Analytical Goals the box while you are “This is a forecast of the result we should be able to produce if we work hard at it.” standing in it! Almost Impossible Goals “This is the very best result we can imagine possible (1% chance) and we have no idea how to make it happen.” 4

3/11/2014 Stretch Goals Stretch Goals • You use stretch goals, they don’t use you. • Fully achieving a stretch goal is not the main They do not exist to dominate you and stress focus of your attention. You are interested in you out. They exist to give you something to being creative, progress, and learning. shoot for, to have fun trying to see if you can make it. Moon Shot & Cancer Stretch Goals • 1961: President Kennedy sets the goal to send • You need to create a “safe ‐ fail” situation with a man to the moon and return him safely by a stretch goal. You can’t treat failure as an the end of the decade. issue. You have to play. • 1970: Congress passes a resolution to cure cancer by 1976 as a fitting celebration for the bicentennial. Safe Fail  “‘The fastest way to succeed, IBM’s Thomas Watson, Sr., once said, ‘is to double your failure rate.’ In recent years, more executives have embraced this point of view, coming to understand that failure is a prerequisite to invention. A business cannot develop a breakthrough product or process if it is not willing to encourage risk ‐ taking and learn from subsequent mistakes.” The Failure Tolerant Leader Harvard Business Review, 2002 29 5

3/11/2014 Stretch Goals • You have to set your own boundaries on Pessimists & Optimists Unite resources you will use to achieve the goal— including the amount of time you spend on it. Make this all part of the “game.” Otherwise, Use “Flexible Optimism” you stress out and/or turn your 70 hour weeks into 90 hour weeks. 32 Stretch Goals Strategic Intent • Since the prospects of failing at the stretch "Creating stretch, a misfit between resources goal are high and failure at some goals can and aspirations, is the single most important have real life implications—when you set a task senior management faces.“ stretch goal, ask yourself “Am I willing to live with the worst probable outcome?” If not, ‐ Gary Hamel & C.K. Prahalad don’t set it that high. Challenges The Wall Street Journal “Stretch is a concept that would have • Everyone else operates on the forecasting produced smirks, if not laughter, in the GE mindset so you have to be careful about with of three or four years ago, because it whom you share your stretch goals. essentially means using dreams to set business targets – with no real idea of how to get there . . . . If you do know how to get there then it is not a stretch target.” ‐ Jack Welch, March 8, 1994 35 6

3/11/2014 Challenges Challenges • You may fall back into the old mindset and get • The stretch goal approach does not stressed or feel bad if you fail. Watch for that. guarantee you good creativity. It will unleash creativity, but some creative ideas will sound good and not work. You need to decide when to try it again or differently or try something else. Failure • We need to transform our relationship with The biggest challenge is setting Almost failure in order to leverage the aspirational Impossible Goals is overcoming the mind ‐ set and the Power of Almost Impossible Fear of Failure that has been bred Goals. within us. • What is your relationship with failure? 39 Failure Transform Your Relationship • “I am as worthless as the slugs who creep in with Failure the crevices of the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean!” “We Celebrate Noble Failure.” 7

3/11/2014 Fundraising Project Accomplishment: Goal Result Any result of positive Magnitude 1988 $40,000 $48,000 1989 $25,000 $24,000 Success: 1990 $25,000 $17,000 Any accomplishment which meets or exceeds its intended result Failure: To fall short of an intended result 43 Fundraising Project Fundraising Project Goal Result Goal Result 1988 $40,000 $48,000 1988 $40,000 $48,000 1989 $25,000 $24,000 1989 $25,000 $24,000 1990 $25,000 $17,000 1990 $25,000 $17,000 1991 $50,000 1991 $50,000 $62,000 Fundraising Project Fundraising Project Goal Result Goal Result 1988 $40,000 $48,000 1988 $40,000 $48,000 1989 $25,000 $24,000 1989 $25,000 $24,000 1990 $25,000 $17,000 1990 $25,000 $17,000 1991 $50,000 $62,000 1991 $50,000 $62,000 1992 $150,000 1992 $150,000 $143,000 8