A Refinement on Setting Goals

Interesting piece in the Boston Globe I found by way of the Blog of the Nation from NPR...

Goals are great. "Among psychologists, the link between setting goals and achievement is one of the clearest there is, with studies on everyone from woodworkers to CEOs showing that we concentrate better, work longer, and do more if we set specific, measurable goals for ourselves." I've talked about the importance of specifics and metrics in setting goals on this blog before. Goals and reaching or not reaching them are pretty much the foundation of all our dramatic narratives (total Matt Good uncited conjecture). Goals are good. But of course, the worthy aphorism "Know Thyself" applies as much here as everywhere else...

There is risk in setting goals. This is pretty obvious on a small scale (visiting the grocery store with the goal of buying some beef does not help you if you are making fish, even if you did reach your goal). Of course, it's easy to pretend that a given concept, when properly dressed up with bigger words and impressive, accomplished backers, is not at its core that given concept at all. Seems to be happening a lot in our world these days.

Take GM: they set out to regain 29% market share, but "In clawing toward its number, GM offered deep discounts and no-interest car loans. The energy and time that might have been applied to the longer-term problem of designing better cars went instead toward selling more of its generally unloved vehicles." Yop. Wrong goal. Except in this case, it turns out that the goal they set was mutually exclusive with the goal they should've set. Oops.

Right about now, you're supposed to think about myopia and remember that I wrote up a nice little post about Wakefulness of Mind just a few minutes ago. Being wakeful (or intellectually curious) will help you to set the correct goals, and to realize when one specific goal is mucking up the broader picture.

Are the two in conflict? No, they actually are in harmony, even though they work on opposite ends of the spectrum. Wakefulness attempts to understand all aspects of an issue, and goals attempt to focus on just one of it's facets. Either without the other is suboptimal.

Another reason rampant goal-setting can be dangerous: "Business professors Maurice Schweitzer of the University of Pennsylvania and Lisa Ordonez of the University of Arizona, co-wrote a 2004 paper on what people do when they fall just short of their goals. According to Ordonez and Schweitzer's experiment, in which subjects played a word game and then reported how well they did at it, what people do is lie to make up the difference." This is not the kind of thing you want large companies to be tempted to do when sales are down. Or car companies to do when their Pintos keep exploding

Here's a few more choice quotes from the article that sum up some of the new thinking on goals:

• "Goal setting has been treated like an over-the-counter medication when it should really be treated with more care, as a prescription-strength medication."
• "You know how Shakespeare wrote that the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves?" asks Latham, a professor at the University of Toronto. "Well, the fault is not in our goals but in our values."
• If you are GM, argues Schweitzer, "You clearly don't want 29 percent market share, you want something much more complicated than that."

I think the takeaway here for us is to know ourselves. It should be easier for us to monitor how well a goal is working than it is for a huge corporation of tens of thousands of people. But is it really any easier to know ourselves? To know what we really want? Perhaps not. But it is perhaps the most important requirement for being intentional, and one that should be in a state of continuous reevaluation.

Wakefulness of Mind

I saw a little something from Philip Pullman, author of the "His Dark Materials" series (and who I would usually not really give much of a care about), that caught my attention. In a speech to the Convention of Modern Liberty (whatever that's about), he talks about what he calls "wakefulness of mind:"

"Another virtue that a nation needs is intellectual curiousity. Wakefulness of mind, one might put it. A nation with that quality would be aware of itself, conscious of itself and its history, and every separate thread that makes up the tapestry of its culture...

"A nation where this virtue was strong, would be active and enquiring of mind, quick to perceive and compare and consider. Such a nation would know at once when a government tried to interfere with its freedoms. It would remember how all those freedoms had been gained, because each one would have a story attached to it, and an attack on any of them would feel like a personal affront. That is the value of wakefulness."

Isn't that a rather nice articulation of what it means to be a thinking person? For those of us who have a strong sense of context, it just sets our geek-o-meters a buzzin'.

The term "Wakefulness of Mind" is also pretty good on its own. It does a little more than "intellectual curiosity." "Curiosity" implies that what you are considering is trivial, optional. "Wakefulness" implies that thinking about something on a deeper level is essential to your very consciousness. What a nice way of putting it.

Tip 'o the hat to the fabulously nerdy Lisa Gold: Research Maven blog, from which I pulled (and pared down) the excerpt.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

My first post...

I found this book enjoyable. Is America full of fundamentalists? Justin has always hated, and has never wanted to work for "The Man," but has found himself in a job that, though not directly responsible, is responsible for futuristically hurting the common man. I find it increasingly peculiar that Hamid addresses American society as "pragmatic and effective." Do we as people just cut what we don't need, despite the cost for a person's quality of life and future happiness? I could get into corporations and such, touching on how much outsourcing is done by American businesses overseas for cost savings so as to increase profits, but I don't know all the numbers for that.

Another idea present in the book I latched onto was that Americans, after 9/11, were looking back instead of forward. I have yet to read any of the literature (novels) put out by Barack Obama even though I voted for him, but I hope I am not naive in my hope that he is looking forward. Isn't that what we are supposed to be doing as "intentionalist?" Looking forward? Is not being "intentional" premeditation on an idea, belief or occurrence and then pursuing it? Well, in light of this book, I hope that your goals/intentions do not in any way adhere to fundamentals. That you take into consideration the world and community in which the effects of our intentions evolve. Would that not be the proper Christian-like attitude?

Anyway, those are just thoughts I felt like sharing. I would be interested in hearing your ideas.