Humans are restless beings. They are always found incubating some desire, running towards some destination or chasing a dream. That desire, destination or dream is their 'goal'.
A goal can be
defined as a desired result a
person or an organization envisions,
plans and commits to achieve. It can be seen as a desired end-point in some
sort of assumed development.
Importance of Goal Setting Parameters
Goal setting parameters involve establishing specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound (SMART) goals. Work on the theory of goal-setting suggests that it is an
effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants in a group
with a common goal are clearly aware of what is expected from them. On a personal level, setting goals
helps people work towards their own objectives - most commonly with financial
or career-based goals.
Setting goals affects outcomes in four ways:
- Choice: Goals narrow attention and direct efforts to goal-relevant activities, and away from perceived undesirable and goal-irrelevant actions.
- Effort: Goals can lead to more effort; for example, if one typically produces 4 widgets an hour, and has the goal of producing 6, one may work more intensely towards the goal than one would otherwise.
- Persistence: Someone becomes more prone to work through setbacks if pursuing a goal.
- Cognition: Goals can lead individuals to develop and change their behavior.
Goals that are difficult to
achieve and specific tend to increase performance more than goals that are not.
A goal can become more specific through quantification or enumeration (should
be measurable), such as by demanding or by defining certain tasks that must be
completed.
No goal is 'unachievable' or 'unrealistic' for an enlightened mind. Even the most difficult goals can be achieved and realized by means of perseverance, creativity and effective management tools. We will see with the help of an example how it is possible.
One fine morning when we assembled in our classroom for our POM lecture, our honorable faculty member invited us for a class activity called the 'Tower building exercise'. The goal of the exercise was to build a tower of 17 cubes with eyes blindfolded.
Step 1: The height of tower was arrived at after deliberations and agreement by the whole class.
Step 2: The goal was evaluated to determine its SMART characteristics and the following observations were made:
Specific: A tower of cubes was to be built with eyes blindfolded.
Measurable: Height of tower could be measured in terms of number of cubes.
Achievable: A similar tower of 17 cubes was built by IM 18 batch last year.
Realistic: The blindfolded person would be verbally instructed by another person during the course of whole exercise.
Time bound: The tower was to be built by the completion of lecture hours i.e. 2 hours.
Step 3: A team of three volunteers from the class was invited to perform the task and each team member assumed a different role, namely:
The Worker: One who would be blindfolded and would undertake the task of placing cubes one upon the other. He would simply be a follower with no authority of decision making. A worker can be viewed as one having technical skills more than human or conceptual skills.
The Supervisor: He would give verbal instructions to the worker and would be responsible for each right and wrong move the worker makes. His dicision making authority would be limited and his human skills would be more developed than technical or conceptual skills.
The Manager: He would plan, organize, lead and control the whole exercise. He would have the final authority in decision making. He would be the one expert in conceptual skills.
Step 4: The task was performed as designed. The worker placed one cube on the other based on continuous instructions from the Supervisor. The manager kept a close eye on the intricacies and suggested a better move whenever required. He along with the whole class cheered up for the worker and the supervisor whenever a cube was placed successfully. The applause motivated the team to build a balanced and strong tower.
Step 5: The goal of building a tower of 17 cubes was achieved successfully within time. This gave the team a high and they continued placing cubes one after the other. Height of the tower kept on increasing until the class decided to call it a day. The exercise ended on a high note where all team members performed their task efficiently.
My Learnings
Through tower building exercise, we saw that how a seemingly difficult task was completed successfully. The goal setting parameters help us in accessing the nature of goal and the course of action to be taken. Importance of these parameters are not limited to organizations and systems. Even a personal goal has to be SMART in order to be achieved.
Kiran
Roll No. 76
IM 19, Section B
Leadership
Motivation 
Leadership and motivation are synonymous with each other and are used interchangeably. But we must know that there is a fine line distinguishing the two. These are two inter-related but distinct traits that can or cannot be possessed by a single individual. Leaders aim at achieving work excellence for each task while motivation aims at achieving personal excellence for each group member. Both work in unison to achieve overall organisational excellence.
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When leaders make a mistake,
they say, "I was wrong." When followers make mistakes, they say,
"It wasn't my fault." A leader works harder than a follower and has
more time; a follower is always "too busy" to do what is necessary. A leader
goes through a problem; a follower goes around it and never gets past it. A leader makes and keeps
commitments; a follower makes and forgets promises. A leader says, "I'm good, but not
as good as I ought to be;" a follower says, "I'm not as bad as a lot
of other people." Leaders listen; followers just wait until it's their
turn to talk. Leaders respect those who are superior to them and try to learn
something from them; followers resent those who are superior to them and try to
find chinks in their armor. Leaders feel responsible for more than their job; followers
say, "I only work here." A leader says, "There ought to be a
better way to do this;" followers say, "That's the way it's always
been done here.".jpg)
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