‘Smart’ vs ‘Clear’ Goals

I’m sure we’ve all heard of ‘Smart’ (‘Specific’, ‘Measurable’, ‘Attainable’, ‘Realistic’ and ‘Time-bound’) goals and understand them to be a good way of reaching strategic goals.

However, even Smart goals have their limitations in the sense that they are known to stifle creativity and hinder adaptability.

In other words, Smart goals make sense in highly structured performance management environments, but they are not ideal in ever-changing or new environments.

When you’re growing a business or even establishing a new way of doing things, it becomes quite difficult to be very specific or to be accurately time-bound.

This is where ‘Clear’ goals come in. ‘Clear’ stands for ‘Challenging’, ‘Legal’, ‘Ethical’, ‘Agreed’ and ‘Recorded’ and is sometimes a better guiding framework for high-level, ever-changing contexts.

Let’s work through them: The first is ‘Challenging’.

Oddly, the need to make goals too specific and realistic often comes at a cost of making them challenging.

Challenging goals have a large element of uncertainty and being unrealistic to them, so if you want to establish new levels, you may have to depart from the safety and certainty that Smart goals offer.

‘Legal’ and ‘Ethical’ are important components that go together. When you are doing something brand new, there is often very little regulation, standards or even legislation that governs that specific area and you therefore must govern yourself ethically and legally.

‘Agreed’ and ‘Recorded’ go hand in hand with ever-changing goals.

Fast-moving environments cannot wait for quarterly meetings to make big strategic decisions and changes. Therefore, these must be agreed and discussed as widely as possible, and most importantly formally recorded in accordance with the delegated authorities within the institution.

A good decision, taken in the wrong way, can make it a costly decision.

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