Smart Goal Setting

Continuing with the series of discussions on the course of Principles of Organization and Management.

Today's Concept - Smart Goal Setting

What is SMART ??

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Attainable

R = Relevant

T = Time Bound

Specific

The first term stresses the need for a specific goal over and against a more general one. This means the goal is clear and unambiguous; without vagaries and platitudes. To make goals specific, they must tell a team exactly what is expected, why is it important, who’s involved, where is it going to happen and which attributes are important.

A specific goal will usually answer the five "W" questions:

• What: What do I want to accomplish?
• Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
• Who: Who is involved?
• Where: Identify a location.
• Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

Measurable

The second term stresses the need for concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of the goal. The thought behind this is that if a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether a team is making progress toward successful completion. Measuring progress is supposed to help a team stay on track, reach its target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs it on to continued effort required to reach the ultimate goal.

A measurable goal will usually answer questions such as:

• How much?
• How many?
• How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable

The third term stresses the importance of goals that are realistic and attainable. While an attainable goal may stretch a team in order to achieve it, the goal is not extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance, as these may be considered meaningless. When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. The theory states that an attainable goal may cause goal-setters to identify previously overlooked opportunities to bring themselves closer to the achievement of their goals.

An attainable goal will usually answer the question:

• How: How can the goal be accomplished?

Relevant

The fourth term stresses the importance of choosing goals that matter. A bank manager's goal to "Make 50 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by 2:00pm" may be specific, measurable, attainable, and time-bound, but lacks relevance. Many times you will need support to accomplish a goal: resources, a champion voice, someone to knock down obstacles. Goals that are relevant to your boss, your team, your organization will receive that needed support.

Relevant goals (when met) drive the team, department, and organization forward. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal.

A relevant goal can answer yes to these questions:

• Does this seem worthwhile?

• Is this the right time?

• Does this match our other efforts/needs?

• Are you the right person?

Time Bound

The fifth term stresses the importance of grounding goals within a time frame, giving them a target date. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This part of the SMART goal criteria is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish a sense of urgency.

A time-bound goal will usually answer the question:

• When?
• What can I do six months from now?
• What can I do six weeks from now?
• What can I do today?

Then Dr. Mandi taught us about the Pygmalion effect.

The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform.The effect is named after Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw.

An example of the Pygmalion effect is in groups. If there are two groups, one group thought that their teacher was "good", the other group thought he was "not good". The teacher treated both groups the same, but the group with a positive expectations had better outcomes than the others; Simply because those with positive expectations made them perform better than other students.

The Pygmalion effect is also an important instrument in management theory. It makes managers be aware, that the success of their employees depends not only on qualification, personal qualities or working environment. Manager always has to believe in his people and expect them to achieve the best results. In such case the subordinates will always feel this trust and demonstrate their best skills and abilities in their work.

Goodbye for now... More Lessons coming up.... 

Lesson Two - Craftsmanship and Modern Organization

Enough of introduction... Lets get on to the Lesson...

What is Craftsmanship??

The craftsman focuses on the product, which he or she has invented or developed. He possesses a specific skill that originates from a trade or craft. Craftsmen tend to operate as sole traders or at least in small businesses. They are often characterized as loners.

What is Organization??

An organization is a social entity with a common goal and linked to a social environment. In a modern organization the focus is on deskilling the process so that a complex task is broken into small parts and these small parts can be done by any individual with no particular skills required. Therefore modern organization do not require any craftsman. Craftsmanship takes more time to complete a job. 
In modern organization as parallel work are performed so time is saved. The interdependency in the organisation is much more than craftsmanship where a single person do all the work independently.

3 E's of Excellence 

Businesses have a tendency to focus on one the 3 E's.

The 3 E’s of management which are required to be achieved by any organization are   –

      1)    Effectiveness

      2)    Efficiency
      3)    Excellence

• Efficiency - Doing things as smoothly as possible, trying to eliminating processes and activities that do not add value to the product. It is measurable
• Effectiveness - Doing things as perfect as possible, making sure the end result is what the customer wants. It is not quantifiable.

Efficiency plus effectiveness will tend towards a premium strategy, giving the customer a smooth delivery of what they want                                                                                                                          

We can relate Excellence with effectiveness and efficiency directly.

Excellence = Effectiveness x Efficiency

Effectiveness is doing the right things and Efficiency is doing the things in right manner

                                                                          

First Management Theory Learnt - Theory X and Theory Y

Another go at Blogging!!

Second Class with Professor Mandi... This time he brought some wooden cubes with him and distributed those in the class. A student was asked to come out and build a tower with those wooden cubes. He built 16 cubes tower. Commendable!!!

Then Professor Mandi propounded the Theory of X & Y. Theory X & Y was an idea devised by Douglas McGregor in his 1960 book " The Human Side of Enterprise ".
Theory X is assumed to be authoritarian style where the individuals are considered that they dislike work, are shy and require constant coercion to perform. Management's role is to direct and control these employees.
Theory Y on the other hand is participative style of management which assumes that people will exercise self-direction and self-control in the achievement of organisational objectives to the degree they are committed. It is management's main task to maximize that commitment.

There are four possible conditions for working of workers and managers.

Condition 1 - Theory X assume LAZY workers as LAZY and make them work.
In this condition Manager will drive to bring out the worker from the comfort zone and make them work hard. Workers may revolt but to a lesser extent and it will not benefit the organization very much.
Condition 2 - Theory X assume NOT LAZY workers as LAZY and make them work.
This condition may result in losing of good employees. Managers fail to identify the true potential of the employee. Performing employees do not like to be told often by Boss. This will be really detrimental to the organization's growth. 

Condition 3 - Theory Y assume LAZY workers as NOT LAZY and make them work.

This is the worst condition. All the work will be delayed. Both will together bring downfall to the organization.

Condition 4 - Theory Y assume NOT LAZY workers as NOT LAZY and make them work.

This is the best condition and a Win-Win situation for the organization. Both will together work for the progress of the organization and take the organization to new heights.

In my Experience in the organization where I worked, there was a hard working employee but his Boss used to often give bad feedback about his work and used to overload him with work. He was given too many crucial value engineering projects. When he resigned all of a sudden it was a big loss to the company as he was working on a crucial project and it was very difficult to replace his skill set so fast. Project was delayed by an enormous extent and provided to be a big loss to the organization.

Looking forward to the next session.... Till then Happy Learning and Happy Blogging!!!

A New Beginning.........

After three years of job, I was looking forward to the college life again. NITIE - God's own Campus gave a chance to fulfill my dreams. After three days of enjoying the weather, campus, Powai Lake and HiraNandani comes 17th June, 2013.

New class, high expectations, professors and what lies in store for us were the feelings among us. It reminded me of the Engineering days when emotions used to run high.

9:15 AM -- Thus entered a professor a bald and aged as expected. Suddenly he started opening his sandals and then distributed some globe balls and some other toys and asked us to play with it. Soon the balls started flying here and there.

This was Professor Mandi the Legend as we had heard from our seniors..........

Straightaway he told us not to open any notebook. No slide, nothing on blackboard. Is this what is management!!! Nothing like Engineering!!!

Professor Mandi taught us the usefulness of writing blogs. I am not a big fan of blogs but he made us realize that we the elite students of the country can educate millions of children through blogs.
Be it your experience, your learning anything....... We the blessed ones should make use of the technology to the best possible extent. Mankind is progressing, technology is progressing but is it reaching out to millions of poor??

Then we calculated our opportunity cost for doing MBA. It came out to be enormous. He he gave us a figure that I am spending Rs. 2500 daily for MBA. OMG!!! Big figure. Hope I get a really good placement.
He emphasized on the fact that we need to earn side by side. Aaj ki Roti... Aaj ki Kamai!!! To Earn and Learn.... Socho Becho... Becho Seekho... Seekho Socho!!!

Then in the second lecture we sang one of my favourite song from Pink Floyd. Imagine singing in the Class.
It taught us a lesson that we should just not be another brick in the wall. Innovation is needed for this great country to progress and we should take the initiative. We should not be Job seekers but Job providers.

I hope that other classes are like this where learning can be fun!!! Looking forward to the next class.
Enjoy God's own Campus....