Purpose, Goals and Objectives

Setting Goals
SMART Goal Process

Writing a purpose statement and establishing your goals as an organization is sometimes intimidating but can be simplified by asking some basic questions such as, "Why did we establish this group? What do we hope to accomplish both short term and long term?" One of the very first tasks of the group should be to decide upon a clearly stated, realistic, general description of purpose that will be easily understood by members.
Before you can monitor and accomplish the organization's goals, you first have to understand its purpose. Your goals and programming should connect clearly to this purpose. Referring back to this statement in times of disagreement will help you bring about resolution to the discussion.

Not only should there be a formal purpose, but there should also be an informal aim to integrate learning within your organization. Each member should one day leave your organization a better person because of what his or her experience taught. It is the leadership's responsibility to provide opportunities to challenge its members to understand and appreciate diversity, to provide service to the broader community and to develop personal and professional skills in the area of leadership development.
This development will mean something different for each person. Some individuals will be leaders in an organization; others may become better leaders in their families or personal lives as they develop skills to better manage their own lives. Each organization can encourage this development by establishing goals within a broader context.

A very effective and simple method to create goals for and with your organization is called creating SMART Goals. SMART is an acronym created by Paul Mayer and described on the website www.topachievement.com.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Tangible. Creating goals that meet these criteria, will enable your group to move forward faster, with a clear direction and time line.

Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six "W" questions:

*Who: Who is involved?
*What: What do I want to accomplish?
*Where: Identify a location.
*When: Establish a time frame.
*Which: Identify requirements and constraints.
*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, "Get in shape." But a specific goal would say, "Join a health club and workout 3 days a week."

Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as......How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable - When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.

You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.

Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.

Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

Tangible - A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing. When your goal is tangible, or when you tie a tangible goal to an intangible goal, you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.
Intangible goals are your goals for the internal changes required to reach more tangible goals. They are the personality characteristics and the behavior patterns you must develop to pave the way to success in your career or for reaching some other long-term goal. Since intangible goals are vital for improving your effectiveness, give close attention to tangible ways for measuring them.

For more information, or assistance contact the Student Leadership Program, slp@odos.wisc.edu or go online at www.topachievement.com.