Don’t Set Goals, Ask Questions.
I hope you haven’t set any goals yet. In fact, I hope you don’t set any goals.
I have had numerous conversations with Heads and leaders, and they have all asked the same thing, “Is it just us, or are other schools also unusually busy?”.
This has been an incredibly busy start to the school year- or has it? The consensus regarding this feeling of intense business is that staff are taking on more than they normally would. Why? Because they can! They are embracing every opportunity to do more with their students and their colleagues.
Normally, I always advise against setting goals within the first 60 days of a school year. This year, though, it is even more important that staff take time to pause and reflect on everything they have learned since the school year started, and then engage in the goal setting process.
Don’t Blindly Set Goals
Firstly, it is too early in the school year to have already set any goals. Even if you have entered into this school year with a goal set from last year, it is still too early to have committed to it. Why? Because all of the various variables that will influence your goal are still surfacing, from understanding the capacity and capabilities of team members, to trying to balance the expectations from others with your own.
If you have set a goal, then you need to take a step back and reassess the desired result against the reality of your working environment. You should also take into your own, as well as others, personal circumstances, as these might have changed since the goal was set. If your goal requires collaborating with others, do you even know their personal circumstances? Do they have the emotional, social and cognitive bandwidth to begin pursuing this goal? Let alone continued interest in it?
It is too early to assume your goal is set. Setting a goal without properly assessing the systems and people that your goal will be dependent on is a sure fire way to fail. In fact, get used to reassessing your goal every month, as all of these variables (both professional and personal) are constantly changing.
Goals Shouldn’t Mean More Work
Secondly, like so many other words, the word goal means so many things to so many people. At the heart of the definition is to achieve a desired result. But, results can vary from just getting your most important work done to transforming the way you teach or lead, such that the change in practice positively influences learning or collaboration.
In my experience, most teaching and leadership goals are statements of what people should be doing regardless of whether it is called a goal or not. Most goals are really just priorities, the work that is most important and should have the most time and energy spent in pursuit of completing it.
Why am I anti-goals? Well, first, if you are setting goals based on work priorities, it is really just work. That doesn’t seem very inspiring or motivating. Secondly, if the purpose of the goal is to do something transformative, then I can assure you, backed by ample research, that setting a goal won’t result in the best possible outcome.
I for one don’t want to commit myself to a goal, or some greater purpose, knowing that the purpose is merely intended to make me work more or harder. If I commit myself to something intended to positively influence how I teach or lead, in addition to all of the other work I need to do, then I want to make sure the outcome of this extra work not only represents the best of me, but that it also builds my capacity and capabilities.
The goal I commit myself to I need to know has value; that the work I do will be valued. I need to know that I will professionally develop as a result of pursuing this goal. Being valued and professional growth are essential motivators because I will most likely not achieve what I intended. I will definitely face obstacles along the way that will call into question why I am even pursuing the goal to begin with. Great, these are precisely the conditions for doing transformative work.
A ground breaking study by Towers-Perrin found that employees value knowing their work matters more than they value their salary. Professional development reassures us that regardless of the outcome we will have grown from the experience. Taken together, if I am going to commit myself to working more and harder for some ‘goal’, then I need to know I will feel valued regardless of the result and that I will have grown professionally in the course of pursuing this goal.
Goals Should Be Questions
A quick recap of my beliefs about goals:
Goals exist in dynamic environments and need to be responsive to the changes in its environment;
Goals should improve how we work and learn, not be about what work and learning we need to do; and
Goals should contribute to my development and perceived value.
To achieve my goal, a single statement won’t suffice- not even a SMART Goal will do. SMART Goals are nothing more than really clear tasks. For me, the goal needs to be iterative. The goal needs to be able to evolve as new information and insights surface. The goal needs to invite collaboration with others.
I accept that the goal will change as I progress in my pursuit of the desired result. I accept that the result may not be what I envisioned. I accept that I cannot achieve this goal alone and that how I draft my goal must invite the interest of others to want to contribute.
For these reasons, and many more, my goal must be a question. A statement presumes you know where you are going and how to get there. If this is the case, then why call it a goal? Even if your goal is a complex journey, you will ask some big questions along the way, so why not start with a question? For example, you might have the goal:
To develop the dispositions and skills in grade 6 students that will support more effective agents of learning.
This is a great start, but now what? This statement begs many questions. It also sets boundaries on what might be possible when those questions start getting answered. This statement could be SMARTer, but it would limit the potential for collaboration. Specific goals, by their very nature, limit the interest in and growth potential for others.
This latter point about SMART goals being very limiting, is very important for teams.
Specific learning goals in teams focus individuals’ attention on narrow elements of their tasks, thus reducing coordination, communication and team-work—resulting in missed opportunities for learning and innovation.
— Nahrgang et al., Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2013
Nahrgang and colleagues evidenced that when teams had a very specific goal, as compared to a learning goal in the form of a question, the team evidenced less collaboration, had higher incidences of conflict and performed worse overall.
Revisiting the original goal about student agency, here is an example of what it might look like as a question:
How will we identify and document instances of agency so we can establish a benchmark to evaluate student agency against?
This question is still pretty SMART, perhaps even more so, in that it establishes the purpose to evaluate student agency. As a question, though, it allows for more freedom to explore the subject matter. To answer the question, several other questions need to be asked, documented, and answered. For example, how do we define agency? What are age-appropriate instances of agency? What do we want to document? It is not enough to simply ask the questions; they need to be recorded, as they are part of the road map.
The answer to each question is a mini-goal, an output that contributes ultimately to the greater outcome. It is for this reason that inquiry drives goals and why goals should be in the form of a question.
If you have already committed to a goal, then take time to assess the systems and people that your goal is dependent on. Next, consider drafting the goal in the form of a question and ask a few people that question to see how they respond. Their responses will be a good indicator of their understanding, interest and even willingness to contribute to your goal. The more conversations you have the more you will learn, because the goal is driven by inquiry. AND, the more you learn, the more likely you are to succeed with your goal.
Michael Iannini is an education management consultant that is recognized by the Council of International Schools as an expert in Strategic Planning, Governance, Human Resource Management, and Leadership Development. He is the author of Hidden in Plain Sight: Realizing the Full Potential of Middle Leaders, and coordinates professional development for a network of over 250 private schools in Asia for the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools and Search Associates. You can learn more about Michael and his work by visiting www.pdacademia.com and www.middleleader.com.
