Setting Your Goals

...goals should contribute to the mission, vision, and strategic plan of the organization...

There are five basic rules that can help you set effective goals. always make your goals, SMART:

Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Reachable and Time-bound.

• Specific goals are meaningful only when they are specific enough to be measured and verified.
• Measurable goals need to have a clear outcome that can be objectively assessed. They also need to have clear benchmarks that can be checked along the way.
• Aligned goals should contribute to the mission, vision, and strategic plan of the organization and be congruent with the values and objectives of the employee implementing them.
• Reachable goals should require you tot stretch to reach them, but not be set unrealistically high.
• Time-bound Open-ended goals can be neglected because there is no sense of urgency to complete them. Whenever possible, goals should include a specific time limit for accomplishment.

ACTION POINT: Write down three SMART goals that you want your team to achieve in the next five years, and then plan how you will reach them.