Encyclopedia of Leadership

Action Plan:As you write your intent and goal statements, a hodgepodge of ideas for achiev-

ing your goals will likely come rushing out at you. Don’t lose these thoughts. Note them under

action plans. Your notes should include key requirements for achieving the goal: sequencing,

scheduling, steps, milestones, resources needed, who needs to be involved, assumptions, time

demands, and so on. Keep it simple; your focus here is on writing a clear goal statement. You

can focus on writing clear action plans later.

These acronyms have received wide publication, and may be helpful as you write your goal

statement. Goals should be:

HOW TO USE THIS LEADERSHIP TOOL

“What is the use of running when you are on the wrong road?”

—German proverb

Inherent in the goal-setting process is the notion of ends and means chains. That is, goals are

hierarchical, with lower-level goals being the means to achieve higher-level goals. Take, for

example, the goal of bringing a new technological innovation into production. The immedi-

ate goal is market penetration. A higher-level goal is increasing market share. An even higher-

level goal is increasing division revenues, and so on. Thus, the goal of “market penetration” is

only a means to the higher-level goal of “increasing market share,” and this in turn is only a

means to “increasing division revenues,” and so on.

If it helps, think of your intent statement as being a higher-level goal, and of your goal

statement as being a lower-level goal. Now, from this perspective, write a couple of clear goal

statements. As you work, write the intent statement, or whyit’s important to achieve this goal.

In addition, as you write these statements, note even lower-level goals—action plans that will

help you accomplish your goal.

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Use the workspace here to draft a couple of clear goal statements. As you work, make com-

ments in the intent (higher-level goal) and the action plan (lower-level goals) categories.

Although you will make notes in all three categories or goal levels, make the focus of your

effort the writing of a couple of clear, measurable or observable goal statements. Clarifying

intent and writing action plans are usually easy once clear goal statements have been written.

Goal #1

SECTION 2 TOOLS FORBIG-PICTURETHINKING 63

A = accurate

C = consistent with higher-level

objectives

O = stated as outputs

R = realistic

N = numeric

S = specific

P = payoff-oriented

I = inspiring

R = realistic

O = observable

S = specific

M = measurable

A = attainable and actionable

R = realistic

T = time-limited

The ACORN model The SPIRO model The SMART model

Intent