Merely drafting a pretty corporate strategy does not make a good leader, but he/she needs to get it executed in the right manner. For this, ambitious targets need to be set, specific metrics identified for measurement and the team progress periodically reviewed. Today, 95% of organizations set goals for themselves, a number even visionary management thinker of the “management by objectives” fame- Peter Drucker- could not have envisaged. Most organizations are blindly wedded to this concept of goal-setting, yet few realize that this actually goes counter to the targets of strategic alignment. Many go to the extent of setting easily achievable targets, so they can rely on their bonuses and other incentives. And that is why goals need to be FAST and not SMART. FAST here refers to Frequent, Ambitious, Specific and Transparent. SMART talks of Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-related. Google, Intel and Anheuser Busch In Bev are examples of organizations that are following FAST principles.

Source:https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/with-goals-fast-beats-smart/

Uploaded Date:27 September 2018