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SMART Goals

Career and SMART Goals: How to Set Them and Pros and Cons At work you have probably been involved in setting, measuring, and evaluating progress in meeting goals. These may have been for your particular position, or perhaps they were for your unit or organization as a whole.

Our focus for this project is on setting goals designed to help YOU achieve your career and professional aspirations. Thus, before creating one or more SMART goals it is important to envision and clarify how you see your career progressing, the career path (see Career Planning and Changing, 2007 in the Resources section below) you wish to take to make this possible, and the personal competencies you believe will be important to get you where you want to be. Begin this process by writing a short (three-to- four sentence) statement that summarizes your career aspirations and priorities (i.e., career goal—see Greenhaus, 2006 for more information).

A useful next step is to create and implement SMART goals to help you accomplish the future you envisage for yourself. One method that has been popular, especially for setting short-term goals, uses the SMART model. This is described below followed by an example and an explanation of some of the recognized limitations of the SMART model.

S = specific. Your goal should be sufficiently specific that you identify what you want to achieve, when, where, and why.

M = measurable. You need to be able to measure and verify your progress in achieving your goal.

A = achievable. This one seems pretty obvious, but many of us have experience setting a goal that we eventually realize wasn’t really achievable. Thus, it is important to do a reality check to reduce this risk. One approach is to discuss your goals with a mentor, coach, or someone you trust to give you honest and objective feedback.

R = relevant. It should be easy to see the connection between your SMART goals and your longer term career and professional aspirations.

T = time-bound (timely). An important criterion for setting an effective SMART goal is that you indicate when it will be accomplished. Be specific about this—include mileposts and deadlines.

Here is a simple example of a broad career/professional goal and one associated SMART goal:

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Broad (longer-term) career goal: To achieve a position as a senior project leader within the next two years. Competencies needed for this position include advanced knowledge and skills related to creating and sustaining high-performing teams.

For knowledge, an associated SMART goal might be: Read a minimum of six articles (M) by leading team scholars (S) by the end of this semester (T) and create a short one-page personal briefing note (A) that captures the main lessons learned with follow-up actions (R).

For skills, an associated SMART goal might be: When working with the team to complete project 1C (T) I will consciously practice active listening skills (S) with team members, will arrange to obtain feedback on this from a team buddy (M), and include results and follow-up actions in the one-page briefing note (A & R).

Limitations

One criticism of the SMART goal is that it may not be useful for those in positions/organizations requiring high levels of flexibility and innovation. Prather (2005) notes that innovation necessitates outside-the-box thinking, and the somewhat inflexible nature of SMART goals makes them less appropriate in settings where major innovations (breakthroughs) are needed.

References

Prather, C. W. (2005). The dumb thing about SMART goals for innovation. Research Technology Management, 48(5), 14-15. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login? url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=18241690&site=eds- live&scope=site

Resources

" Career Planning and Changing (https://lti.umuc.edu/contentadaptor/topics/byid/b43a2daf- 0322-4664-988d-c8044e8fc306)

" Career Goal (https://lti.umuc.edu/contentadaptor/topics/byid/f06949c9-89ae-4117-bee1- 1bf43f934da6)

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