Goal Setting- Lessons Learnt From the Tower Buliding Activity

"Democracy is about majority, Management is about consensus"

What are the lessons you can hope to learn from building a tower out of building blocks (in an MBA college, no less)? Not a lot, I can hear you say.. But, it turns out you can actually learn quite a bit.

Goal Setting:
Lets first get the theory out of the way (A lot of interesting stuff follows it, I promise!).

1. S.M.A.R.T. Goals

A pretty well known acronym to start with. It means goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. I could explain it here, but better people have already done it much well than I could, so I'll just point you in their direction-

Wikipedia
More theory
SMART goals for Dummies

But the idea here is to make the concept yours and run with it. Since the goals and targets are yours, the meaning of this acronym should also be yours.

Alter it, make variations, use it to provide a more comprehensive definition for your goals:
S - specific | significant | stretching | synchronized
M - measurable | meaningful | motivational | magical
A - attainable | agreed upon | achievable | acceptable | action-oriented | accurate | admirable
R - relevant | realistic | reasonable | rewarding | results-oriented | resonant | radical
T - time-bound | time-based | timely | tangible | trackable |tenacious

Its your wish really. Your goals can be what you want them to be.

As Elbert Hubbard, once said- "Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage, but simply because they have never organised their energies around a goal."

2. Pygmalion effect : It is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon the people, the better they perform. 

Wikipedia
How to use it 
Pygmalion and Galatea Effects 

This video also does a good job at explaining the concept:

3. Top to Bottom : In this Strategy goals are set hierarchically. First Goals will be set for the Top Management and then each Top management level will set goals for their respective unit goals such that they can fulfill their goals. Now each Unit head will set the goals for each employee in their unit.
Wikipedia
Advantages and Disadvantages
Top-down vs Bottom-up
 

4: POSDCORB : The acronym stands for steps in the administrative process: Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting and Budgeting.

Wikipedia

Summary:
As you must have seen in the last post, the teams which went for building the tower had very modest targets. The end result especially made the targets set seem laughable. In the case of the activity, it might have worked out with the team over-achieving, but it was an exception and not the rule. If you consistently set low targets for yourself you end up underachieving- compared not to the goals set, but to your potential. Consider the graph below:

Not speaking for anyone else, but the above chart is how I feel most of us usually set our goals. Look at what has been historically achievable, set the target a little high, but well under your potential so that in the end even though you might achieve more than you set out to achieve, but it is much less than what your potential is. The fear of failure or the fear of not living up to expectations breeds the philosophy that most of us have been taught- "Under-promise and over-deliver".

But targets should not be set this way. All this does is promote lethargy and is the cancer in any organization. Your potential is not a constant. As soon as you achieve it, it increases. The more work you put into an activity, the more adept you become at it. So the solution to break this chain is to set your objectives way higher than your potential and once set, sweat and give it your all to achieve it.

Goals set should follow the Fibonacci spiral:

Each consecutive target, much higher than the one preceding it- only then can you ever hope to ever achieve your true potential! "Over promise and super deliver"- that should be the mantra.

That's it for today. The comments section is below. Let me know what you think!
Onwards and Upwards!