Setting Goals to Get Better Results

Goals are common; they are everywhere organizations do strategic planning. Indeed, you may even be asking why Goals are worth a blog entry. (Trust us – read on.)

Goals are an assumed, essential part of strategic planning, and strategic planning is an expected part of a well-managed government organization. In fact, they are so commonplace that government organizations often become unconscious both about the form they take and about the impact they can have on your organization and your customers.

Over 11 years, 45 jurisdictions, hundreds of individual departments and thousands of program teams, Weidner has been in the ring for many a 12 round “title bout” as our customers fight for meaningful Goals. In the very early days in our work with some very well-managed local governments like Austin, we developed what were pretty stock-in-trade strategic planning Goals. Unfortunately for our customers, our own understanding had not evolved at that point past the strategic planning norm that Goals were either:

A) general statements of intention that don’t lead to anything but a good feeling about the status quo, or

B) lists of tasks and strategies which departments surely knew they would and could accomplish.

So in the early days of Managing for Results, the Goals we helped our customers developed held little chance of actually influencing the future – which is, of course, why anyone does strategic planning in the first place.

Then in 2000-2001, Marty (Weidner) applied our own methodology to our own methodology. She started writing Goals as Results – specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and time limited (yes, SMART Goals, for those of you who know the acronym). These Goals are different, and more powerful. They look like:

** By 200X, 67% of children in foster care in Franklin County will be place in permanent homes within 12 months
** By 20XX, residents of Maricopa County will experience 300+ ‘breathable’ days per year
** By 2007, auto theft rate will be reduced by 20% to 7.8 annually
** By 2008, the part 1 violent crime rate will be reduced by 20% to 3.2 annually.

Charles Curry, the former Budget Officer for the City of Austin and a Weidner lead for Budgeting For Results since his ‘retirement’ in 2001, has taught us what happens when Goals are not written as results. Give an organization a task and it will focus internally to successfully execute the task. Give an organization a strategy and it will execute the strategy. However, give an organization a result to achieve for customers and watch how the experience, wisdom and energy of the organization is released to make sure the customer experiences that result. Many different tasks and strategies may be brought to bear so the customer gets to experience the desired result. The focus is not on getting through the “to do” list – but on ensuring the best results for your customers.

It really does matter how you write Goals. Ask yourself: are our Goals perpetuating the status quo, or are they exciting the organization to higher performance, innovation and creativity – and most importantly, improved customer experience? It really does depend on how they are written.