Setting goals is important. Writing them down is even more important and when you do you may want to consider what I call the SPAMO technique. Yup, in order for goals to be worthwhile you have to eat your SPAMO. SPAMO is something I picked up while teaching project management in my younger days. I taught a series of courses to some engineering project managers for a large civic project. They wanted to update their skills in order to make sure that the large government contract they were on would be successful. It was during this course, that I started to use the term SPAMO. I believe much later on I learned that this was an actual acronym that was referenced in the early days of project management, Specific. Pertinent. Attainable. Measurable. Objective. I have always just remembered Specific and Measurable Objective.
If you actually want to achieve something it is important to be really clear as to what exactly it is that you want to achieve. This way, you will know when you achieve it! There are a few things that happen when you get specific. You have a better frame of reference as to what you need to do to achieve the outcome and you also have something to very quickly judge your progress against. Finally, having a way to measure the objective is what makes it come alive. A measure is always what helps you achieve, pursue and understand what you are trying to accomplish.
Vague and unobtainable objectives are for the dream world. They are the lofty, nebulous goals that we set. Lifetime achievement type of stuff. I want to be more like Jesus, one might say, but that is completely nebulous and most definitely unobtainable. I want to be the best mother ever. Ok, great ambition, but seriously what would you do? How would you know you did it? I want to be rich. Once again, by what standard, by what measure? I vaguely remember a conversation with my mom and my sister about being popular in school. The goal of being popular, might be a great ideal for a young teenage girl, but at what cost? What does that actually mean? I remember my mom giving some advice about this and I remembered it for years. What is popularity exactly and how do you define that?
When I was teaching a Systems Analysis and Design course once, I was teaching on this topic and I was asking for specific and measurable objective examples. One man, who was obviously struggling with this topic, said “lose weight!” Everyone laughed, so did he, which I guess was the only thing he could do. However, I decided to dive into that topic a bit. We all have the goal of losing weight at one time or another. Why is it that we never achieve it? I proposed to the course that there was two main reasons. The first is that the goal of weight loss was not inspiring enough, way to achievable. A goal needs to be unobtainable, a objective needs to be measurable. You need both. When I asked what the goal should be, one young man yelled out, “look great naked!” Now that was funny, but oh so true, and inspiring! That stuck with me for years. Look great naked has become a phrase for me that I use to describe the perfect, unobtainable and inspiring goal statement. The objective can be the very bland, but very specific measurable objective. Lose 20 lbs by July 1st. Now that would be very specific and very measurable. So there you have it, the audacious goal, followed up by the specific and measurable objective.
So an exercise that would be a great thing to accomplish would be to consider what your audacious goals are. What are those crazy, unobtainable life long dream statements that you aspire to but could never achieve. Walk the Path of Buddha, learn to serve others, become a great leader, life a peaceful and balanced life. Be creative, make them fun. One of mine has always been, become the Old Man that Everyone Laughs With and Shuts up When He Speaks. Totally nebulous, totally unobtainable. However, now you can start to craft your journey to get there. That happens with SPAMO. You write down the specific and measurable objectives that are going to get you there. What exactly are you going to do, and how will you know that you achieved it?
Guy Reams
