High time to switch from SMART goals to FAST goals?
In many organisations, employees work with SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. The SMART concept is easy for most employees and teams to understand and apply to their own work. It leads to goals that are clear and achievable, that can be made objective by being measurable, and where there is an end date by which the goal should be achieved. The use of SMART goals was conceived in the 1980s and was (partly) aimed at making working with Management By Objectives better. So it has been around for almost 4 decades. There are different versions of SMART regarding the interpretation of the A and the R, e.g. Assignable (to individuals) instead of Achievable, and Attainable and Relevant instead of Achievable and Realistic. For convenience, I use the definition I mentioned first, but the limitations of SMART apply equally to the other definitions.
Limitations of SMART goals
Set and forget
The 'SMART' concept leaves open a lot of things that are, however, essential to the effectiveness of working with goals. We start at the back with the Time-bound. This is useful because it makes it clear that work should not be done endlessly to realise the goal and it is clear to all involved until when there is an opportunity to achieve the desired result. But it says nothing at all about follow-up during realisation. Even the term 'Measurable' in itself does not help with this because there is no direct link addressing progress. On top of that, many organisations use SMART goals with a calendar year as their horizon. Together, this means that although goals are set (and are measurable and time-bound), in practice the term 'set and forget' applies.
Limited ambition
The requirements Specific, Achievable and Realistic imply that the goal pursued is clear, that it is within the capabilities of the person or team pursuing the goal, and that it is also realistic to pursue that realisation (during the period in question). Any goal that meets this is thus conforming to the concept and therefore OK in principle. However, there is no reference to the ambition of the stated goal. Indeed, the two terms 'Achievable' and 'Realistic' will suggest to many employees that they are mainly expected to set goals that are very likely to be achieved. Failure to achieve a goal with the predicates 'Achievable' and 'Realistic' will be likely to make many employees or teams feel problematic (with regard to their own performance). This undoubtedly leads to setting goals with limited ambition.
The need for a different approach
Of course, all these shortcomings can be caught and addressed by setting up a good framework that makes the intentions and ground rules clear to everyone in the organisation. However, this is already an extra step that requires a lot of steering and monitoring to avoid the automatisms mentioned above. In addition, the current times demand a strong degree of change, agility and mutual knowledge sharing between departments, teams and employees from many organisations. Frequent succession and ambition in the organisation are then extra important and its absence a considerable obstacle to success.
What if we could come up with a new concept that effectively addresses the above limitations? In other words, a new concept that immediately makes it clear to teams and staff what the intention is? And that, as a bonus, also takes a letter off the acronym!
Enter FAST goals
That is exactly what Donald Sull (MIT Sloan Business School) and Charles Sull (Charles Thames Strategy Partners) have done. They suggest that organisations start working with FAST goals: Frequently Discussed, Ambitious, Specific and Transparent.*
Frequently discussed
This means that the goals set are part of regular conversations in the organisation. Status and progress are discussed and obstacles are brought to the surface. This leads to focus and prevents the realisation of the set goals from fading into the background in the everyday hectic of ad hoc work and changing circumstances. And it ensures that necessary adjustments can be identified in time.
Ambitious
The inclusion of ambition in the acronym should ensure that the goals set are also a real contribution to achieving progress and success. The degree of ambition should seek significant impact, be stimulating and challenge solutions (or experiments). In practice, the desired degree to which goals should be challenging will depend on the culture of the organisation and the circumstances in which it operates (e.g. the degree of urgency for improvement and innovation).
Specific
The term 'Specific' of FAST goals is interpreted more broadly than for SMART goals. Specific here means that goals have been made measurable and trackable, and that it is clear what the goal aims to achieve (and therefore there is no ambiguity). This actually encapsulates the S and M of SMART goals in 1 letter, which makes more sense because when making a goal specific, the question of measurability is a logical component (and not a separate step).
Transparency
Transparency means that the goals set and the progress on their realisation are accessible/consultable throughout the organisation, both horizontally and vertically. This creates clarity regarding interdependencies, which is positive for cooperation and knowledge transfer between teams and employees. In addition, it shows employees how their own (team) goals fit into the whole. Transparency thus provides context. Moreover, it makes it visible that (ambitious) goals are sometimes not met at all levels in the organisations. All this has a positive effect on the extent to which employees experience psychological safety: it stimulates mutual communication, provides a sense of belonging and shows that failure or not fully achieving goals is part and parcel of pursuing success.
FAST goals: A better basis for goal achievement
As mentioned, you can also work with SMART goals, setting up your framework so that Frequent Discussion, Ambition and Transparency are part of working with goals in the organisation. However, the strength of FAST goals is that these aspects are already contained in the concept without skipping essential items that are in the SMART principle. While the item 'time-bound' is not mentioned in FAST goals, we normally set goals for a specific time period/period. This makes explicit mention of an end date unnecessary.
FAST goals fit seamlessly with the requirements and insights of today's times, such as the need for speed and agility, experimentation and learning, collaboration and interaction, and psychological safety. The right interpretation of the level of ambition, transparency and frequency of discussion, and how to properly incorporate these into work routines will be different for each organisation. Adopting a FAST concept forces organisations to think about this explicitly and make targeted choices. As a result, these important elements of strategy execution and the realisation of long-term success will not easily fall out of the picture.
Want to know more?
If you would like to exchange views on this or would like a fresh look at how goal achievement works in your organisation, please feel free to take contact with me.
Pieter van Oijen
pieter@workanize.nl
*Sull & Sull, With Goals, FAST Beats SMART, Sloan Management Review 2018.
Photo by Mauro Gigli on Unsplash