Goal Clarity: Beyond the Fog

What’s keeping you and your organization from reaching your respective goals?

By G. Lance Jakob, PMP, CRL Cohesive Solutions

Leadership success starts with a clear vision of the future. A compelling vision inspires us—and those around us—by setting unambiguous expectations, thus establishing a system of accountability that fosters the correct behaviors. According to Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton in their book, The Strategy-Focused Organization, “A mere 7% of employees today fully understand their company’s business strategies and what’s expected of them in order to help achieve company goals.”

Enthusiasm often wanes over time, but it’s the exceptional leader who can persistently reinforce the vision. Florence Chadwick was the embodiment of persistence with regard to goal clarity. “Who’s she?” you ask . . .

Celebrity in the making; then the fog

Florence Chadwick grew up swimming. Not the suburban-pool style we tend to envision (or what we’ve recently seen in Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic swimming pools). She never had much interest in those types of pursuits. Chadwick preferred open-water endurance swims. At the age of six, her uncle enrolled her in a race in her hometown of San Diego. She was hooked, and began participating in more and more competitions.

When Chadwick was 10, she placed fourth in a 2.5-mi. rough-water night swim, beating many older, more seasoned endurance swimmers. A year later, she won a 6-mi. race across the San Diego Bay channel. From that point, winning became her norm. It wasn’t long before she set her sights on monumental challenges.

On August 8, 1950, Chadwick set a world record for crossing the English Channel, swimming from France to England in 13 hours and 20 minutes. Her time broke Gertrude Ederle’s record by more than an hour—a record that had stood for 24 years. On September 11, 1951, she became the first woman to swim the channel from England to France and the first woman to swim the channel in both directions.

Chadwick returned to the United States as a celebrity. San Diego even threw a ticker-tape parade in her honor.

On July 4, 1952, at the age of 34, Chadwick attempted to become the first woman to swim across the Catalina Channel, a 21-mi. stretch from Catalina Island to Palos Verde on the California coast. The weather that day was inauspicious. The ocean was ice cold. Sharks circled around her. (Several times, her support crew used rifles to drive them away.) The fog was so thick that she could barely see the support boats beside her.

As America watched on television, Chadwick swam tirelessly. Although her mother and her trainer provided endless encouragement from a support boat, after 15 hours and 55 minutes, she felt that she couldn’t go on, and asked to be taken out of the water. She was a mere half mile from finishing.

Without trying to excuse herself, according to reports of the day, Chadwick noted that if she had been able to see the shore, she “could have made it.” The sad fact is that the fog had essentially obscured her goal and led her to believe she wasn’t making progress. Can you relate?

The essence of goals

Goals are the means by which organizations measure success. Lack of clarity is the primary reason for not achieving them. The question is, if establishing clear goals is critically fundamental, why is it that so many organizations fail to do it?

Part of the reason is the fear of accountability. If we draw a line in the sand as our declared goal, we’ve communicated to everyone our expectation of success. Anything less is a failure. Unfortunately, fear of defining goals can leave organizations uninspired and drifting aimlessly. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, “The best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

Another reason organizations fail to set clear goals is the absence of a structured framework. We know we want to be the best, but what does it specifically mean to be the best? And how do we measure that?

We’ve probably all been exposed to the ubiquitous concept of SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely). The mnemonic was first introduced by Dr. George Doran in his 1980 Management Review article “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management Goals and Objectives.” Many academic studies have concluded that the use of  SMART methodology leads to much greater likelihood of achieving the defined goals. The SMART methodology hinges on the creation of specific goals that are clear and unambiguous.

Dr. Edwin Locke and Dr. Gary Latham are thought leaders in the world of industrial and organizational psychology. In 1990, they published the sentinel book, A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance, which emphasized the importance of clarity in driving motivational behaviors. These authors argued that clear goals serve as “a reference point for guiding and giving meaning to subsequent mental and physical actions.”

Consider these two goals:

• Create a safe work environment.

• Reduce safety incidents by 12% in the next nine months.

Which can be unambiguously measured for achievement? More important, which goal is more likely to motivate desired behaviors?

A comprehensive performance-management initiative can provide the structure, visibility, and direction necessary to overcome resistance to proper goal definition. Effective performance management requires that meaningful, adaptable, and easily understandable measures be aligned with our strategic objectives. Perhaps more importantly, we must unambiguously define what success looks like. What results will be good and what will be unacceptable?

Clear goals create explicit accountability, without which people lack the incentive necessary to change their behavior. The measures themselves are not the finish line. The key is the improvement in the underlying processes they represent.

The rest of the story

So, whatever happened to Florence Chadwick? Two months after her July 1952 failed attempt to swim across the Catalina Channel, she made another go at it. Although the fog was just as dense as before, this time Chadwick kept a mental image of her goal in mind. After 13 hours, 47 minutes, and 55 seconds, she reached the California shore, breaking a 27-yr.-old record by more than two hours—and becoming the first woman ever to complete this swim.

Goal clarity solidified Florence Chadwick’s place in history. What can clear goals do for you?

References

Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, “A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance,” (Prentice Hall College Division, 1990).

“Florence Chadwick 1953-1964,” Queen of the Channel (queenofthechannel.com), accessed June 24, 2016.

“Florence Chadwick a Swimming Legend,” San Diego Union Tribune, Sept. 22, 2014.

George Doran “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives,” Management Review, Vol. 70, Issue 11 (1981).

Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “The Strategy-Focused Organization,” (Harvard Business School Press, 2001). MT

Lance Jakob is a business performance architect with Cohesive Solutions (cohesivesolutions.com), based in Kennesaw, GA. Contact him directly at ljakob@cohesivesolutions.com.