LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS

Manager as Mentor - SMARTER Goals

"If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else."

Laurence J. Peter, The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong

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Jane Savage
Fri 05 Jul
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Manager as Mentor - SMARTER Goals

How many of us keep our well intentioned New Year Resolutions? Our desires to give up, do more, be better …It’s highly likely that our desires are rarely kept even until the end of January. Setting a clear goal helps to create measurable steps for what we want to achieve, but it seems we are not accountable to ourselves like we are to others and without accountability, we are very likely to push working towards our goals to the bottom of our to do lists.

An American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) study found that people have a 65% chance of completing a goal if they tell someone else that they are committing to do it.

Having a specific check-in, such as with a mentor, increases the chance of success to a whopping 95%.

At KnowledgeBrief we support agreeing SMARTER goals with your mentee.

Specific – if what’s required is too vague, your mentee may be unclear what’s expected or confused and therefore their goal is unlikely to be met. Keep actions concise and precise. Break larger aims into smaller steps or key milestones.
Measured – how will you both know when the goal has been achieved or what progress has been made?
Achievable – keeping the steps small enough to take, but challenging enough to push forward will help to keep motivation alive and create the desire to achieve.  Agree the ‘how’; explore the steps the mentee can take to make things happen.
Relevant – keep looking back to the reason why your mentor relationship is happening. How does the goal align to the mentee’s initial aspirations?
Time-based – having an agreed timeline helps the mentee to demonstrate they can plan and prioritise. 
Evaluate – check-ins allow you to assess progress and creates the accountability needed to reach that higher probability of success. What’s worked well, what challenges have been faced, how have those challenges been overcome, what will they do next? 
Reward – it’s always a great motivator to receive positive comments, praise and recognition before moving on to Revise – what’s next? 

Before finishing your session, test the mentee’s commitment for making their goals happen.
For example, asking “on a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to making this happen where 1 is ‘not’ and 10 is ‘totally’”. Any score less than 8 can be discussed to identify what’s getting in the way. Work together to address the barriers before asking again, and possibly again, until you agree a commitment score of 10. Now your mentee is motivated to get going.

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