At this time of year it's quite common for individuals and teams to throw a number of goals down on paper - grow sales, expand the team, get more organized. Get healthier. It can be useful to drill-down into these goals by making them more SMART-E. The benefit of this is that these goals then become more concrete and we can tell when we are moving closer to completing them.
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A - Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Time-bound
And I like to add an E – for Exciting.
Take a look at this past week’s Teams365 video for a 2 min overview of the SMART-E framework.
An example we commonly hear is that “we’re going to grow the business”. What exactly does that look like? When do we know we have gotten there?
To make it SMART-E the team might decide:
This year, we are going to grow our sales in digital products (specify products) by 100% each quarter by increasing our outreach efforts, developing an affiliate program, and doing more targeted online marketing.
Is this SMART? It definitely is more specific, but, is it measurable and achievable? If you increase your sales 100% each quarter that’s pretty significant. Can you do that four quarters in a row?
What are the measurable steps - what does more targeted mean? What goals do you have around outreach or affiliates. Measurable steps help us know where we are along the path. It might be to create 100 new affiliates each quarter or create new daily outreach opportunities.
Action Step: Take one of your goals and make it SMART-E. Don’t forget the E for excitement. What is exciting about your goal? How will you celebrate the milestones? What is the bigger picture of why you are doing this?
Have a great Tuesday,
Jennifer
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.
New in 2018 - The Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets twice a month throughout 2018. We'll be exploring topics like Emotional Intelligence, Team Management, Coaching Skills. We'll be kicking off on January 26th at 845 am ET online.