MT Goals Examples
February 3rd, 2008This cast gives numerous simple examples of Manager Tools’ ‘MT Goals’: Goals that are Measurable and Time-Based.
Our MT Goals 3-part cast generated a great deal of enthusiasm. A lot of managers are thinking right now about what their goals are or will be for this calendar year. And, a lot of managers struggle with the dreaded “SMART” goal standard, which hopefully we successfully put paid to in the previous casts.
MT Goals are much more clear, and frankly just plain EASIER than “SMART” goals. Managers spend too much time making bad goals into ones that pass a misguided test, while other managers are told that goals that are impressive and well-targeted aren’t of the right format. It’s silly and terribly counterproductive.
But after our last three casts, some managers have asked for examples. If you need help turning your goals into MT goals, this is the cast for you.
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February 4th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Mark & Mike-
Another excellent one …
Done “on the road”, at 5 am … I like that.
How many hours of sleep do you guys get?
Céd.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:02 am
[…] You can listen to the whole podcast here. The podcast includes eight other examples of goal transformation and a few examples of excellent MT goals. Start around the 10 minute mark to skip some unneccessary introductory comments. Posted in career on February 5th, 2008 RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. […]
February 7th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I admit to feeling disappointment at this post. Where was the rooster crowing, for goodness sake!
:)
-Jim+
February 8th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Good job for podcasting on the road. It is much more difficult to get good sound quality with only one audio track, but the podcast sounded great to me…even if Mark was a bit hoarse.
Keep up the good work, guys!
Rachael
February 8th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Really enjoyed this podcast. I’ve heard some interesting objectives in my time….and now I’ve heard some more!
The best objective I ever had was the only objective I had when I worked as a Switch Engineer at (what you would call) an ILEC; Never miss an interconnect testing slot. It was measureable - miss; it was time-bounded - never. It certainly kept me focussed on all the other things I had to do to achieve it.
The sound quality was ok, but not good enough to hear those roosters in Central London at 5pm on a Saturday.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Guys,
The cast was fine from a sound quality standpoint. It will certainly suffice in “emergencies”.
Thanks for another wonderful and informative cast.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
M/M: the production value of this cast was great - the only way the listener would know something was up was because you tipped us off to it…and I’m really glad you left in Mark’s split second sigh of relief at the very very very end. Cracked me up.
While listening to those unbelievable examples, I thought back to Mark’s citing the Rudyard Kipling quote on some ‘cast long ago (the one about the great helpers being the questions who/what/when/ where….). I think of two simple questions to help pull the MT goals out from the ordinary ones: “How much?” and “By when?”
If you’re a manager trying to help your reports sharpen up their goals, start by looking at whatever they’ve developed, and get them to answer those two simple questions…how much? by when?
Thanks again for the great ‘cast guys.
-Hugh
February 9th, 2008 at 11:07 am
That wasn’t me! It was MIKE! He was sighing that he had said something a second time that he was trying to edit out.
I love being the bad guy, though, if it makes everyone think better of Mike.
Mark
February 9th, 2008 at 11:09 am
MarkWalsh-
Well said. Some technical objectives can have always and never…because the consequences are DIRE.
Cheers and thanks for the kind words,
Mark
February 9th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Rachael-
I was hoarse from your conference! I had to pantomime my requests for ice chips on the flight back.
Mark
February 15th, 2008 at 12:07 am
I’ve always understood the R in SMART goals to be “relevant,” which is to say relevant to one’s mission, vision, and values. You can set all the measurable and time-bound goals you want, but if they’re not relevant to the mission of the organization, then the goals truly would be “MT” (read phonetically)….
February 28th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Good work guys.
Couple of questions:
1) How do you set “good” targets on metrics you don’t have experience with?
Example, we just launched a new product for a website. My team is responsible for driving clicks for a feature, but we don’t have a baseline or enough experience to know what separates “reasonable” improvement and awesome performance.
2) What do you do when you set MT goals and all of your reports blow them out of the water? They can’t all get superstar ratings . . . right?
March 6th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Love these podcasts, they are helpfull.
AbramKJ-
I think it is assumed that all of your goals would be relevant to either your own personal improvment, or if it is a company goal then relevant to the company.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
ABramKJ-
We don’t think that most managers will set irrelevant goals.
And we don’t think their managers will let them if they do.
And if they do, they’ll get negative feedback about them at some point.
As we said in the cast, there are all kinds of goals one could set. We think the best use of your time is on the M and T part.
Mark
March 6th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Darren-
Benchmark.
Wrong. They can. The question is whether you have the political clout to push it through. If you fail to do so, you’ll have to go back and apologize that you failed to do your job well, and perhaps unintentionally allowed the inference of a rating for achieving enormous gains that was unsupportable.
Sadly, too many managers focus on that conversation as the problem…when in fact, it’s the first conversation that is the problem.
This is why managers have managers - to overrule some goals, or to help with the capital to get the rewards that might have been inferred from the goal’s continued existence.
Mark
March 10th, 2008 at 12:17 am
About the Rooster.
I love the Rooster. The world is flat after all. The face that one of you is clearly in a rural corner of the US dispensing advice to thousands of professionals globally endorses Friedman’s message.