Tick Tock Tick..! The clock struck two and thus began our fourth session of Principles of Organization Management (POM), albeit with a change. This time we were asked to shift our chairs towards the blackboard. A goal is a desired (personal or organizational) result a person envisions, plans and commits to achieve. A goal can be long-term or short-term. The primary difference is the time required to achieve them. As they say that, ‘well begun is half done’, setting a goal becomes all the more important. Imagining walking during a dark night in a dense forest, Goal setting lightens up the path for us in such a forest. It gives us a clear idea as what needs to be achieved and how. A person without set goals is like a blindfolded warrior. He may be very talented and enthusiastic but the chances of him succeeding are drastically reduced.
But Goal setting doesn’t involve only knowing what needs to be done, it consists of many factors. We were told about the importance of setting SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. Students then came up with different words for each of the five letters of the word ‘SMART’ and found that how the same thing can be interpreted in numerous ways.
- Specific: Should describe exactly what one wants to achieve in a particular task and up to what extent. It should answer questions like ‘what, which, who, where, when and why’.
- Measurable: We should be able to track the progress and measure the outcome of a particular task. It should answer questions such as ‘how much or how many’.
- Attainable: A good goal should be set in such a way that it can be reached at with the use of available resources and in within the allotted in time.
- Realistic: The objective shouldn’t be so difficult that it becomes impossible to achieve it nor should it be so easy that we aren’t made to stretch our limits. At the same time, the objective should be pertinent to our business.
- Time-bound: The goal should be such that a certain time limit is kept. It should answer the question ‘by when’.
Also, it is important is to keep tracking the progress of a particular task from time to time, keep taking feedback from the people concerned to know if everything is going as per plan and if any changes are required, to complete the task by making the optimum use of available resources. We learned how we need to keep pushing ourselves to go bigger and better at everything that we put our mind to. It is only through this way, that we can realize our full potential. Historical data is helpful to know if our goal is realistic or not, but only to a certain extent. Whenever we plan to do anything, we set a target/goal that we need to achieve. In order to have an inkling about our goal, we have a look at similar goals which were set and achieved in the past. We thus get a decent idea of the extent to which we can think of going to. For our reference, we keep this past record/history as the lower limit. Then, we try to decide the level of our goal that we need to achieve.
Lets take an example of a cricket match. For a team like India, batting first at Wankhede, it will look at the past performances of the teams that have batted first. Lets say, the average score of a team batting first at Wankhede is 280. Now, we as a team, have to set our goal that is higher than the past record. Records are meant to be broken and if we limit our goal to the past maximum, then we are doing injustice to our potential. So a goal should be set very high, so much so that when we actually achieve our goal, it isn't at the same level as the goal that we had set out to achieve. However, this doesn't mean that we over-promise and under-achieve. To our customers/superiors, we should give a fair idea of what's in store, but on a personal note, we should try to fly as high as possible. Finally, we must understand that we all have infinite potential and it's just a matter of pushing ourselves to surpass our boundaries. Thus, we arrive at the following graph, which clearly shows how the output goes on increasing from Historical Goal --> Goal Achieved --> our Potential and finally --> the Goal that we had Set.
We also learned about the Pygmalion effect. The Pygmalion effect is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. It also has an interesting story attached to it. Pygmalion was a sculptor who lived in Cyprus. Women who lived on Cyprus didn't stay virtuous, so Pygmalion decided to live alone and made a perfect sculpture, Galatea. During the Aphrodite feast, thanks to Pygmalion`s prayers, the sculpture turned into a real person. This was called The Pygmalion effect. The Pygmalion effect shows that if we want something enough, we'll get it.
The Pygmalion effect is also an important instrument in Management theory. It makes managers be aware, that the success of their employees depends not only on qualification, personal qualities or working environment. Manager always has to believe in his people and expect them to achieve the best results. In such case the subordinates will always feel this trust and demonstrate their best skills and abilities in their work. Thus, we can conclude that Goal setting and motivation (expectation) are two indispensable parameters, with which the desired result can be achieved.
Personal experience:
Personal experience:
There was this one incident, while working in Infosys, when I was told to design a 'knowledge meter' for an application. I was not too eager in doing it, as I already had many tasks to take care of. And on top of it, this new task required me to learn something totally new within a specified time. Planning my time efficiently so as to make sure that everything was taken care of, was in itself a huge task. But then, my manager took me into confidence and told me how much the completion of the meter on time meant to him. He entrusted his confidence in me and told me that I was the one who could pull it off.
Though it sounded all sugar-coated to me but those words were indeed coming from his heart. I liked the fact that I was entrusted with a responsibility and that there is a certain amount of expectation from me. Naturally, I did not want to disappoint anybody. So I went ahead with full steam, keeping in mind the SMART way of achieving the goal and ensured the completion of all tasks, the foremost being the knowledge meter. Since the task was clearly outlined to me, it was specific, it was realistic provided I gave my 100% and was time-bound as I was expected to complete the job within a specified time. The Pygmalion effect did work for me. And boy, what a satisfaction. And the way my manager's face lit up when I told him about it, made my day!
