Forget New Years resolutions and get SMART

At this time of year we start thinking up our new years resolutions. These generally involve things like  “loose weight”,  “save money”, “exercise more”, “eat less”, etc etc. I hate to break it to you, but your new years resolutions are doomed to fail if they are as loose as those statements. You may as well loosen that waistband and keep chowing down on those Christmas tarts because you’re not going to get anywhere. However, don’t despair, there is a way to set goals and aspirations for the New Year. You’ve just got to get SMART about it. 

Much like business goals your personal goals can benefit from some structure around the what, why, who, when, and how of achieving personal success. Making your new years resolutions SMARTer will give you a greater chance of success. So what is SMART? And how can you apply it to New Years resolutions? SMART is an acronym (if you didn’t get that already) and stands for Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic and Time bound. Here is how you can apply it.

Specific goals are well defined. You need to identify exactly what it is going to take to get you to your goal. I’ll use the weight loss goal as an example. What are you going to do to loose weight? Maybe go to the gym more? How many times a week/month are you going to go to the gym? It can help to break it down into steps or tasks that need to be completed. This is where measurement starts to become helpful.

You need to measure the success of your goals. How will you know you’ve lost weight? Scales/measurement? What is your target? What are your milestones? You may also want to think about how you want to reward yourself when you reach some of your measures.

In a business context aligned refers to how well your objective is aligned to overall business objectives. Alignment is still relevant in a personal context but think a bit more internally. How does your goal align with your personal values? To thrash out the example I’m using (just because it seems to be the common one bounced around at new years), why is it important for you to loose weight? Is it to feel better about yourself? Feel healthier? What is your overall purpose in this goal? If it aligns to a positive affirmation of yourself you may have a better chance of achieving it.

Is your goal realistic? My objectives this year (2011) were not entirely realistic and my sanity and a couple of my goals went out the window as a result (try organizing a wedding, writing and masters thesis and working, or a similar combination, and you’ll understand). They have to be realistic or you simply wont achieve them. Ask yourself, whether you have the time, and resources to achieve this goal? Is it physically, mentally and emotionally possible? For example, your weight loss goal, are you in the right headspace, or are you going to starve yourself to get to your goal? Time frames help make your goal more realistic.

Every goal should have a time frame. It helps you to measure the goal, make is specific and make it realistic. Time frames also allow you to allocate resources and balance up your goals against each other (making completing all your goals more realistic). Your time frame is the period in which you think is realistic to accomplish your goal.

I’ve given you an overview of how to set SMART goals for your personal life but there are a few more tips I can give on how to make these goals really work for you. Firstly, focus on positive goals rather than negative ones. You’ll enjoy achieving them more and enjoyment is conducive to success. This is simply a matter or wording. Turn something negative like “weight loss” into a focus on some exercise that you enjoy, maybe your goal is to dance, run or take up a new sport instead? Loosing weight then becomes a happy byproduct. Secondly, put your goals somewhere where you can see them. Some people like using pictures or lists. You just need to be reminded of them. Lastly, review your goals on a regular basis. How are you tracking? Do you need to adjust them? Have circumstances changed? Are they still realistic? When you’ve achieved the goal, review what went well and what didn’t before you set (or adjust) your next set of goals.

If you want to achieve something in 2012 then really think about how you define your goals for the year. If you keep you goals airy fairy then your achievement of them will be equally so. ‘SMART’ is not just a way to define business goals but also give your personal life a clearly defined direction. Now is the time to think about what you achieve in the New Year both personally and professionally.

Should managers be specialists or people people?

Last week I explored the role of HR specialists so it stands to reason that I should also examine the role of managers who these HR specialists are supposed to support.

Most managers are appointed because they are specialists in their particular field. For example, someone really good at finance or accountancy may one day be appointed to a managerial position where they have staff reporting to them. Quite often these managers are really good at their chosen profession but absolutely suck at managing people. This is, of course, not new to anyone, unless you’ve been stuck under a rock.  How often have you seen this happen?

What I’ve quite often observed is that the lack of managerial skills or even leadership skills is justified by a person’s competence in their specialization. More senior management excuse appalling ‘leadership’ behavior because that person is ‘really good at what they do’. I’m sorry? But why then is that person in a position of influence over others?

Rhema Vaithanathan from Auckland University sent people into a bit of a tail spin recently when she stated that New Zealand Managers are poor at managing people. People don’t really like being told that they suck at something. She also argues that management has a direct influence on productivity. Again, this is not really all that new. Human resource academics have been arguing for a while that managers have a direct influence on the implementation of business strategy (see any work by Peter Boxall and his counterparts if you’d like to explore this in more detail).

There is something to learn from this.  Ideas have been floated about more targeted and wide spread management training to address these competency shortages. ‘Training’ and ‘learning’ are a bit of a soap box for me so I am going to hold off on that one for now. But I do question why management skills and competencies are second priority when appointing or promoting? I go back to the example of a finance manager. The likelihood is that someone will be promoted to this position if they are really good at doing financial stuff. Why? Yes, they may be doing more ‘senior’ financial work as a result of their promotion. But if they suck at leading people, then why put them in charge of people.

I propose a new way of thinking about management: the appointment of people to management positions that are highly skilled at managing and leading people and, who may, have little or no experience in the specialist field there are managing. For example, a finance manager who is not directly involved in undertaking finance related work himself or herself, their team are sufficiently empowered and enabled to do it for them.  When I told my husband this (who is a finance specialist) he asked “who would report financial results to the board?”  Well, you have a finance specialist (who isn’t a manager) who has this as one of their major important responsibilities. The individual team members are empowered and enabled to take on more ‘senior’ responsibilities. This creates very distinct career paths: that of a manager and that of a specialist, with specialists seldom becoming managers.

This proposition does require different and possibly more complex competencies of managers. They don’t necessarily have in depth knowledge of the specialist field but have enough empathy to see things through the eyes of their team. They are competent in coaching and mentoring. They can ask the right questions of their direct reports and provide them with support and motivation. How many managers do you know who can do this really well? How do we develop people into these managers? I’m going to ponder that and come back to you. But if you have any ideas or thoughts then let me know. Just imagine what kind of productivity improvements would result from managers whose main priority was managing and leading their people.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog and its first installment. I’m writing this for two reasons. The first is to practice my writing. While completing my masters thesis this year I took nearly 6 months just learning to write properly. I’d like to keep this up. This blog is part of my practice.

My second reason for writing this is to poke things up a bit with a big sharp proverbial stick. I’d like to challenge, provoke and discuss some of the traditional and emergent perceptions of human resources and management practices

I don’t claim to know everything or anything. In my opinion, ignorance is bliss. Sometimes, if we fully know what we are getting ourselves into we may not do it. I like asking why? Why not? Why don’t we try it this way? Or, indeed, saying things that others might consider politically incorrect. My blog is titled 'learning to fly' because I want to learn more than what I know.

Throughout this blog I will review books and resources, argue some of my ideas around current HR practices, and propose new HR practices as food for thought. As an introduction to this, I’d like to share my general philosophy around the role of HR.  

A consultant implementing lean manufacturing practices once asked me whether the HR department should be eliminated. For those of you unfamiliar with lean practices, it involves using less of everything. Any function that does not add direct value to customers is considered a waste and the aim is to eliminate it. My answer to this question was “yes”.

Now for HR fundamentalists who have, for years now, been arguing the value of the HR function, this answer may cause palpitations. But rest your hearts. I am not out to claim that the HR function does not necessarily add value. However, I do believe that the role of the HR function is to eliminate itself to all but a basic administrative support function. Let me explain.

One of the principles of people management is leadership. The concept of leadership is a full nut to crack on its own so I’ll probably save that for another blog. However, I adhere to the principles of leadership as discussed by Bill George in his book True North (well worth a read for discovering your own leadership principles). What resonates from this book is a philosophy best summed up in this quote:

Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.

Tom Peters.

With people management being fundamental to HR then it only stands to reason that so is leadership. So shouldn’t the HR department lead by example? HR is therefore not about being the process or policy police it is about empowering managers to empower their employees in turn.

The basic premise is that managers are capable and equipped with the resources to engage, empower and lead their teams. The role of HR is that of a coach and mentor. Not necessarily giving the answers or telling managers what to do, but guiding them on their own journey of self-discovery. Can you tell I’m a wannabe learning and development specialist?

This has interesting implications for the potential role of HR. The role of HR is to render them selves unnecessary. If this cannot be immediately achieved in reality then the act of striving towards it changes the nature of the HR team and the value they add. How many highly competent and, usually, well paid HR professionals do you see doing administrative work under the rhetoric of adding business value? Why not just admit that HR is an admin function and focus on empowering managers until this reality is fully realized.