Goal Setting

Many people are thinking about the upcoming school year as a good time to set new goals.  SMART Goals are important not only for larger organizations and businesses, but also for individuals and smaller organizations.  Most of us are aware of that people who set goals are more likely to achieve success as defined by the goals set.  Why is this?  Progress towards goal achievement is generally measured and another common statement is that what gets measured gets done.  Tracking and measuring is a way to evaluate your progress and to hold your organization and yourself accountable.

One way to get started in setting goals is to review your past goals and to evaluate your success in achieving these goals.  Some organizations will also conduct an analysis of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  This analysis is likely to be most effective if you include input from key stakeholders, such as board members, funding sources, clients, staff as well as organizational leadership.  This is one of the ways that your organization can determine what priorities need to be translated in the future goals and to determine what needs to be accomplished, big and small for the upcoming year.Were your goals from the past year successful?  Were they the right goals for your organization. 

You can evaluate the effectiveness of your goals is to use SMART goals.  To motivate action and results goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound.  If your goals are specific enough, they can be used as a road map to accomplish results.  For example, you may want to break your goals down into steps that need to be accomplished in each quarter of the year.  Goals also need to be measurable; if you cannot track whether you have accomplished them, you cannot learn what has and has not been successful and what actions to continue or discontinue.  Goals that are aggressive, but attainable should be the norm.  If you set impossible goals, they will not be motivating to you or your team.  Goals should be challenging, but achievable.  Perhaps they are stepping stones to achieving a very challenging long term goal.  The relevance of goals also should be part of the review of potential goals to set.  It is important to think about whether the goals you set will be actionable for your organizations success. As one article pointed out, “Relevant objectives align with a corresponding goal and with an organization or group’s mission, vision, and values.”  So, reviewing your mission, vision and values might be a good way to assure you will set goals that are relevant. As we have discussed earlier it is also important to have a specific time in mind and not to make all the goals be long term.  If they are not time bound, they will not drive results on the steps to achieving organizational success.

Goals are important in health care and especially in a turbulent and changing environment.  On the micro level, goals are also important to specific roles in health care.  For example, “SMART goals in nursing are not only for a nurse’s own personal and professional goals, but also a way to help patients create and reach their own goals related to their care.”  When writing goals, it is helpful to evaluate whether they will be able to be meaningfully visualized and understood by you and your team.

Here is a check list to evaluate whether your goals are effective.

• Concise
• Free from jargon
• Specific about expected effect
• Easily understood
• Declarative statement
• Does not include solution or specific service/program
• Conveys ultimate destination

This check list will help you evaluate your initial thoughts on goals.  If you need help getting started with refining the goals, here is a helpful template from the Minnesota Department of health.

[Who] will do [what] resulting in [measure] by [when].

By [when], [who] will do [what] resulting in [measure].

By [when], [measure – includes who and what].

[Measure – includes who and what] by [when].

At Hire Outcomes HR, we seek to help smaller organizations achieve their goals, by helping them with successful hiring strategies and results.  For more information, go to Hire Outcomes HR – Hiring Solutions for Success

Sources: Become A Pro At Setting Business Goals In The New Year With These 6 Tips (forbes.com) The Use of SMART Goals in Nursing (nursingcecentral.com) Objectives and goals: Writing meaningful goals and SMART objectives – MN Dept. of Health (state.mn.us)