Being a coach or a leader who is using coaching approach to leading people means you don’t set tasks or SMART goals with detail guidelines, but you rather set a vision, high-level goal and you frame it in such a way that your team owns the goal, is motivated and empowered to get it done. It is not your job to do it, it is theirs.

How do you do it? By asking lots of questions and providing very few answers. If you are a coach talking to a client you want to help him understand what is he trying to achieve so the question might be “What do you want?” If you are a leader you might be the one deciding what needs to be done and then the question is “How do you want to achieve the goal?” Let me borrow here a page from solution focused coaching.

SMART goals needs to be positive

When you ask these questions you need to get a positive answer. If you are not getting one, then ask again or ask differently. What do I mean by positive answer? Let’s say a team member comes to you and says he is not happy with the job he is doing. You ask him “What do you want?” and he says “Well, I don’t like the bureaucracy in my job.”

This is not a positive answer that can trigger action and change. He is talking about what he doesn’t want, not what he wants. When you look around you will see that we all do this very often and it leads to endless complaining and dissatisfaction but very rarely to a real change.

So instead of working with this answer and figuring out how to remove bureaucracy or saying that it is the way things are and it cannot be changed you ask again “What do you want instead?” “I want to have at least several hours a day when I can completely focus on technical work I’m doing so I finish my project on time.” Now, this is something that is framed in positive way with a goal in front of our eyes. It also has second important aspect. It is under our control.

SMART goals must be under your control

Let me give you another example. One of your team members comes to you with this complaint: “My colleague is very annoying and he constantly asks simple questions again and again. I want this guy to stop doing it.” Well, this is not a goal that is under his control as someone else needs to do (or stop doing) something.

Moreover, it is not framed positively. “To stop doing” something is just hidden way how to describe negative thought. When you hear this the question then might be “Why does it bother you?”

You may go through couple of these questions and then get to something like “I want more quiet time for my work to reach the deadline.” Now, this is something that just sparks action.

The question now is “How do you want to achieve this?” “Well, I could just tell him that I would love to help, but I need to finish also my project. Or I could agree with the team that I’m open to questions in the morning, but I need to focus on finishing my project in the afternoon. I can move to separate office.”

Now you look at how is this under your control, what are the risks associated and how could you mitigate them. For example in our case “moving to a separate office” may be very risky as the team needs to communicate quite a lot and this could lead to breakdown in communication so it probably isn’t an option.

Let’s say that at the end the best way forward is just to be very open with the inquisitive person. Now you can work with your employee to help him formulate his thoughts in a way that will be acceptable by the other guy who is “annoying”. You can even role play it if the employee is afraid what the reaction will be. Just make sure the solution is ecological.

SMART goals should be ecological

What do I mean by that? It should be aligned with the overall strategy of the organization or the team and it should support your other major initiatives and not go against them. You should always consider impact on the rest of the organization and not just on your team. You can have the best and smartest goal, but if it doesn’t align with what others are working on, it will fail. And even if it succeeds it won’t have impact as it doesn’t support the rest of the business.

SMART goals must have success criteria

Next step is to identify success criteria. “How do you recognize you achieved your goal?” “How do you know you succeeded?” This is important for two reasons. First, it will make the person to think about what the goal really is. Second, it will help the person to get the feeling of accomplishment when he finishes the job.

This is extremely important in long-term goals or in initiatives that are repetitious. Let us say you are building a team or growing a company. Your goal is to “grow forever”. If you say the goal is “to grow the team” then there is no clear deadline, the target is constantly moving and you never get the feeling of accomplishment. You may say that “the journey is the goal” but that may not always work.

It is much better to break this long-term goal to something short-term and measurable. “I want to staff this team of four people this quarter and if I do this that is a success.” And then when you actually do it, go and celebrate. Yes, there are still hundreds of people to be hired in coming years, but it doesn’t make this particular accomplishment any less meaningful or important.

And now the SMART part of the SMART goals

The last step is to execute. To achieve something you need to start so “What is the very first step you will take?” And be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely) about this. Have it defined as a really small first step that is easy to achieve (small win) but that can be defined precisely, is measurable and has a clear set deadline.

What would be your answers to a person who comes to you with request he wants to feel more motivated? How would you set the success criteria and measure whether he succeeded and really is more motivated? Is it even the right goal?

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