Smart targets may not be so smart

Many of us recently went through the annual ceremony of defining goals and targets for the coming year. It feels good to align all forces toward a common ambition. Often, we want these targets to be smart. Commonly, this is understood to be an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. It makes targets much more quantifiable, whereas objectives and key responsibilities often are more qualitative. This is what makes us feel especially good: modeling the world into a measurable plan we just have to execute.

As a result, we emphasize specific, measurable and time-bound over the other parameters. It’s also not so easy to determine what’s realistic or what will remain relevant for our business. That’s especially the case when we have to set the targets for the entire year.