Here’s a timely question for financial advisors. Are your SMART Goals making you dumb? There’s recent intriguing research and discussion with respect to goals and goal setting, especially as they apply to SMART goals. The gist of the pushback is this. Maybe SMART goals aren’t so smart.
In a recent study by Leadership IQ, “Are SMART Goals Dumb?”, more than 4,000 individuals were studied to determine if the goal-setting process that they used actually helped them achieve “great things”. (Which is, presumably, one of the main points of having goals in the first place!)
SMART Goal refresher course. SMART goals are goals that are: Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Specific.
Here’s what they found. SMART goals were just as likely to help people achieve mediocre results, as anything else. In fact, only 15 percent of the participants in the study strongly agreed that their goals would help them achieve great things.
Moreover, this study conducted a regression analysis to discover what kinds of goals were most likely to drive people to achieve great things. The Top three factors, in statistical importance, were:
One other point jumps out from this study. To achieve “great things” with your goals, it is imperative to leave the comfort zone behind. This is a critical point when examining the relative efficacy of SMART goals, which suggest much more practical and earthbound objectives, (e.g. goals should be achievable and realistic.)
Setting Noble Goals
In a recent blog post by Dan Rockwell, “Beyond S.M.A.R.T. Goals for 2013”, he says much of the same thing:
He poses two questions that go beyond the artificial:
Goal Setting for Financial Advisors
For financial advisors, who have the ability to guide and influence the lives of many clients, families, and generations, including helping many others with their own planning and goal setting, we would ask the following questions:
We trust this helps.
References:
1. “Challenging Coaching – Going beyond traditional coaching to face the FACTS”
2. “Beyond S.M.A.R.T. Goals for 2013