Goal Setting and Management - Human Tower Building Exercise - Lec04

"The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach."  - Benjamin Mays

 - What do we mean by goal setting?

                        Goal setting is the process of deciding what you want to accomplish and devising a plan to achieve the desired result.

                        Hence goal setting is a two part process. For effective goal setting, you need to do more than just decide what you want to do; you also have to work at accomplishing whatever goal you have set for yourself.

                        Goal Setting forms an integral part of all the practices carried out in organizations in the corporate world. It is the responsibility of the managers at all levels in the industry to be aware of the importance of effective goal setting and set appropriate goals for his/her subordinates since goals have the ability to function as a self-regulatory mechanism that provides an employee a certain amount of guidance.

- How to accomplish the goal set?

 

                         While I started out well, by setting a goal to achieve, I didn't perform any action to help achieve my goal. What's missing from this scenario is a goal setting strategy to help accomplish the goal I have set. Without a goal setting strategy, or series of actions, that I am going to use to work towards the goal, whether or not I achieve the goal is just a matter of blind chance. And blind chance is no way to run a successful business! To be successful, I need to make things happen, not just let things happen.


One way to accomplish the set goal is to make SMART acronym a part of my implementation.

a) SPECIFIC Goal - Setting a specific goal builds a criteria (a benchmark) with which I can compare my performance and evaluate where I need to plug the gap, if any. Also it makes the goal more clear and unambiguous.

A specific goal will usually answer the five "W" questions:

• What: What do I want to accomplish?
• Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
• Who: Who is involved?
• Where: Identify a location.
• Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

Example: In my last company, Cognizant Technology Solutions, I was working on the implementation of the new technology which was to be set up at my workplace. It was the main goal and I divided my task into sub-goals and before each day, I used to decide "What is that I want to accomplish till End of the Day today?" and I use to channel all my energy towards that. It increased my efficiency and I was able to meet most of my deadlines without any hassle.

b) MEASURABLE Goal -  There should be a measure by which the progress towards the goal can be tracked because without that it is very difficult to decide whether the team is making progress towards successful goal completion or not. Measuring progress is supposed to help a team stay on track, reach its target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs it on to continued effort required to reach the ultimate goal.

A measurable goal will usually answer questions such as:

• How much?
• How many?
• How will I know when it is accomplished?

Example: In my project, the work was to setup a virtual system on the main host computer to connect to a development environment sumwhere else. Now lets take a case where have to see whether MS Word application in this virtual system is working fine or not (without any lag when we type any character), I had a way to check whether the application came up or not properly. So I had a measure to check my progress.
 

 

 c) ACHIEVABLE GOAL-  The goals which are set should neither be out of reach nor below standard performance, as they would be meaningless.

Example: In class, we had a Tower building exercise using the cubes (2cm X 2cm). The person building it made a rough estimate of 10 cubes without the tower falling while he was able to go till 18 cubes. So this kind of goal is not acceptable and should be avoided as a manager.

Another example is when I used to start my day, if the goal turns out to be either side of achievable standards, I altered it a little bit which helped me and I was able to set the right achievable target going forward.

When you identify goals that are most important, you begin to figure out ways to make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them.

An attainable goal will usually answer the question:

• How: How can the goal be accomplished?

d) RELEVANT GOAL - Choose the goals that matter. Relevant goals (when met) drive the team, department, and organization forward. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal.

A relevant goal can answer yes to these questions:

• Does this seem worthwhile?
• Is this the right time?
• Does this match our other efforts/needs?

Example: The technology which was being setup by me was very relevant in the near future or going forward.


e) TIME-BOUND GOAL - It refers to setting up of a time frame for the attainment of the goal. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date.

A time-bound goal will usually answer the question:

• When?
• What can I do 6 months from now?
• What can I do 6 weeks from now?
• What can I do today?

Example: The technology was to be implemented in a period of 2 months. So the goal was time-bound.

- How goal setting can effect the outcome?

1. Choice:  Goals narrow attention and direct efforts to goal-relevant activities, and away from perceived undesirable and goal-irrelevant actions.
2. Effort:  Goals can lead to more effort - for example: if one typically produces 4 widgets an hour, and has the goal of producing 6, one may work more intensely towards the goal than one would otherwise.
3. Persistence: Someone becomes more prone to work through setbacks if pursuing a goal.
4. Cognition: Goals can lead individuals to develop and change their behavior.

------- An Illustration to show How Goal Setting affect the outcome  ------

 

A - Past Performance

B - Achieved Performance

C - Goal Set

D - Potential

 

a) With the goals defined, the focus will be on relevant activities only.

b) Suppose if a person needs to produce "5 railway parts" on a particular day (Goal Set) knowing that in past he was capable to produce only "1 part" per day - his potential is much higher than 5 per day - He will be motivated to perform better than his past performance and will try to achieve 5 per day. Though he will be able to do 3 per day. Next time his past performance will be higher and the goal set can be increased to 7 per day and he will be able to achieve 5 per day. 

          In this fashion, the employee can be motivated to put in a lot more effort.

c) Because of a setback, the persistence in the employee will be there and he will try to achieve more the next time he proceeds for the task.

d) And goals, as we can see, definately have an effect on the behavior of the person.

- Human Tower Building (An Exercise to demonstrate Goal Setting)

Construction in progress (4 people)

Final Tower (5 people)

The above human tower building exercise was carried out in our class. The amount of planning, placing, effort which went into it was great and the spirit shown by the students was quite marvelous. They were able to produce a human tower of 5 students and everyone was very supportive in their approach for their exercise. We would like to thank DR.MANDI (our professor) for his efforts to conduct this exercise.

This exercise in disguise taught me an important management lesson in a S.M.A.R.T. way!!

a) Specific: The goal was specifically laid out with everyone clear on that front.

b) Measureable: The measure was to produce a tower of maximum height.

c) Achievable: The goal set was achievable of around 4 students but the students were able to construct with 5 students.

d) Relevant: The goal was obviously relevant with the activity that was carried out.

e) Time-bound: As it was a human tower with a little amount of risk involved - we did not delve much into the time it took - just that it should not take more than 10-12 minutes.

This lecture was very much interactive, fun-filled with a very deep management lesson which it carries in a very subtle fashion. I learnt an important management lesson.

Will come out with more such posts in the future. Waiting for your comments. 

                          !!!!!!!!!! HAPPY LEARNING FOLKS !!!!!!!!!!!!