Expert Advice on Setting and Hitting SMART Goals as a Manager

You've realized your team could have even more business impact. How do you get them there? SMART goals can help.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-sensitive. The SMART process can be used for a wide variety of goals, from specific, numbers-based sales and/or marketing goals, such as “growing new sales by 5%” to team development or management goals, such as “ensuring active collaboration between the sales and marketing teams.” 

SMART goals are particularly helpful for leadership goals, such as “Make sure every member of the team fully understands each client, all deliverables to that client, who is in charge of each deliverable, and what they need to produce it.” Creating SMART leadership goals is a means of not only more effectively directing your department, but more effectively communicating what you want to achieve together. The right SMART goal doesn’t just make your department more efficient, therefore; it also boosts team cohesion and creates a sense of shared purpose.

You don’t need to have a perfect understanding of your goal to get started with SMART. The SMART process exists to help you develop that understanding. To make your goal SMART, make it:

S - Specific

“The first characteristic of a good goal that you should focus on is making that goal specific,” Mike Figliuolo explained in his course on Setting Team and Employee Goals Using SMART Methodology. “Make the goal unambiguous. Tell people what to do, why they’re doing it, who’s accountable, and what the performance standards are.”

Non-SMART example: “We need to improve cross-functional communication.”

SMART example: “We will schedule regular cross-functional meetings and establish a concrete agenda for these meetings to better understand how our different teams can work together.”

M - Measurable

Now that you know what you want to accomplish and how you’ll accomplish it, it’s to define a measurable way of tracking your progress. Non-SMART example: “I want the product development teams and customer experience teams to work together more closely.”

SMART example: “By the end of the quarter, the product development team will meet with the customer experience team once per week, and product development team members will sit in on customer experience calls at least five times per quarter.”

A - Achievable

Making a goal achievable means striking the right balance. As Figiluolo said, “it can’t be too easy or too hard.” You’ll know your task is Achievable when you and your team understand exactly what steps you’re going to take to make it happen and confident you can make them happen.

Non-SMART example: “We should be moving prospects through the pipeline twice as quickly.”

SMART example: “We will eliminate procedural redundancies with the goal of reducing our average pipeline velocity from 30 days down to 20.”

R - Relevant

“If the goal doesn’t matter to the organization or to the leader, the team won’t understand why they’re working on it,” said Figiluolo. As Cumberland put it in his course on Foundations of Performance Management: “Those who are asked to achieve goals must be able to buy into them.”

Non-SMART example: “Everyone on the copywriting team should take a course on accounting to understand how payroll decisions are made.”

SMART example: “Everyone on the copywriting team will earn SEO certification and incorporate best practices in order to incorporate current SEO best practices into future content more effectively.”

T - Time-related

It isn’t enough just for your goal to be measurable; a SMART goal must be time-focused, as well. It must have a start date, end date, and timed plan for step completion. “Without a time component, the goal becomes meaningless,” Figiluolo argues.

Non-SMART example: “We should start looking for clients in the aerospace industry.”

SMART example: “We will acquire at least two aerospace clients by the end of the year.”

Choosing a type of SMART goal

Now that you have an understanding of what you want your goal to be, it’s time to set one. There are a variety of SMART goals, and the category yours falls into depends on how you set it up and how ambitious it is. 

Make your SMART goal fit into one of these three categories:

Zero-based goals

A zero-based goal is based on solely on what you want and what you think you can accomplish regardless of historical context. 

“Don’t let history always influence what you’re capable of,” Figliuolo urged. “You could be leaving a lot of value on the table. Instead, forget the past, look at what you have today in terms of resources, and build from the bottom-up to set your goals.”

Example: If your team scales up revenue by, say, $14,000 per year, then a typical goal would keep a number like that in mind and aim for $16,000. A zero-based goal would ignore this history and instead calculate overall potential. If your team could make up to $22,000 more based on projections, then $22,000 would be the goal.

Commit goals

A commit goal is something you and your team need to accomplish in order to do your jobs, such as hitting sales targets or bringing in a set amount of revenue. 

“To build your commit goal, work from the bottom up,” Figiluolo advised. “Work directly with your team and have them make commitments to you as far as what they’re going to deliver for their goals.”

Example: If your team must scale up revenue by at least $14,000 every year to continue growing, then hitting that $14,000 target would be a good commit goal.

Stretch goals

A stretch goal should be achievable, but very ambitious. Hitting it should be a milestone for your team’s development.

“If you just set a commit goal, after you achieve it, your team may just coast,” warned Figiluolo. “They’re going to say, ‘Well, we hit our goal, we don’t have to push ourselves so hard.’ A stretch goal gets them to continue performing.”

Example: If you need to scale up revenue by at least $28,000 dollars to hire a new team member and expand services, then hitting that $28,000 goal in a single year would be a good stretch goal.

Following through on your SMART goal

Now that you’ve defined and structured your goal, you have to lay out—and start following—a plan for achieving it. To do that, take each of the following steps:

Outline

• Break your goal down into specific, concrete subtasks. “If you’re serious about actually hitting the goals you set, you need to break those goals down into specific activities that are going to help you achieve it,” said Figliuolo.
• Assign each subtask to specific team members. “When you set your goals, break them down into sub-tasks, assign those tasks to members of your team so you can hold people accountable, and then monitor and measure your progress.”
• Give each subtask a deadline. This will make tracking progress versus timeline much easier.

Outfit

• Make a list of what your team will need for each task. “Without resources, it’s not fair or possible to hold them accountable for achieving those goals.”
• Make a plan for how you are going to get them these resources. “Let the activities required drive the resources. Resources can be things like money, people, time and support.”
• Work with each team member to build their personal plans. Each team member should have a schedule and timeline of their own. Make sure the team members understand how their tasks contribute to the whole.

Incentivize

Finally, give your team members a strong incentive for completing their goals, such as a bonus, salary increase, or promotion. “When you set the incentives, make a direct linkage between the goal and the reward,” Figiluolo advised.

SMART goals are just one way managers can motivate and direct their team to excellence. For more management insights from the experts, check out our other leadership and management courses.