Crazy Goals Drive Your Crazy

“43Things.com,” a community-based online to-do list, allows you to list your top goals in life. A blog reader, Antony, culled  some interesting statistics from that website.

• 5,716 people set the goal: “Decide what the hell I would like to do with the rest of my life.”
• 21,100 people set the goal: “Stop procrastinating”

What’s funny about the second goal – stop procrastinating – is that I once quoted Paul Graham as saying, “The to-do list is itself a form of type-B (something less important) procrastination.”

Play Like The Patriots?

Readers of my blog know that my “theme” this year is Play Like the Patriots. For those of you who missed it, my beloved team was defeated by the New York Giants in a major upset Sunday night in the Superbowl. After winning all 18 games this year, the Patriots lost the big one. I expected all of my New York friends rub this in my face a bit. They didn’t let me down. Heck, I’d probably have done the same thing had we won.

One blog reader, Toli, commented:

“Stephen, you know I love your stuff, but you must reconsider something: live this year like the Patriots? Which means, basically doing your best and then failing to achieve at the most important moment? This is why I side with the Giants: achieving your goals is always messy, but you get there in the end.”

Thanks Toli, that made me smile!

Although (I assume) you are just poking fun at me, let me provide 3 reasons why I stand by my theme.

1. I said “play like the Patriots” not “win like the Patriots.”

In life – and in business – there aren’t “Superbowls” that determine winners (and losers). Success is not decided by one outcome or game. It is much more complex than that. Unlike sports, the season never ends. It is a continual journey of improvement.

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Can You Judge a Book By Its Cover?

In a previous blog entry, I discussed an Economist article that showed:

1. There is a perception that particular traits are important to good leadership, namely competence, dominance, and facial maturity. Likability and trustworthiness are not.
2. Just by looking at a picture, we can get a sense of someone’s leadership qualities and hence their personality.

In that earlier blog entry, I focused primarily on point #1 and its relationship to the Presidential elections.

Today I want to talk a bit about point #2. The correlation between looks and personality has always been an interesting topic for me.

I remember a friend of mine from high school. Everything about him screamed “nerd.” He wore polo shirts buttoned to the top (back when this was not popular). His hair was greasy and slicked to the side. He always walked around with a stack of books in front of him. And yes, he wore a pocket protector with a myriad of pens. It may come as no surprise that he was the captain of the math and chess clubs. His looks matched his personality.

This made me wonder…which came first: his looks or his personality/interests.

Do nerdy looking people choose nerdy endeavors? Or do people who enjoy nerdy endeavors groom themselves to look the part?

What’s the Causality between Appearance and Personality?

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Goals That Work

I recently received an email from a reader of this blog. He describes what he calls a “loophole” in the goal-setting process: either you achieve a goal and then invalidate it with counter-productive behaviors, or you see that a goal won’t be achieved so you give up totally. He then describes what works (something I suggest on this blog): setting a theme. Here are his thoughts.

I am still setting goals on 43things.com. Very difficult except for shopping list type goals like “buy a new hat”.

I’ve been sleeping 12 hours per day. I had set a goal to get up at 6am and have an afternoon nap. I’ve been doing exactly that, except I go back to bed at 7am until 11am! The other day I set a new goal: “have a morning productivity score of 80/100.” This all-or-nothing goal didn’t work because as soon as I knew I couldn’t reach 80 I let the whole thing go and scored 25.

Goals that have worked are like ongoing themes which are achieved when the first example of the theme is achieved.

One goal was “perform a miracle of friendship.” What I had in mind was that it would take a miracle for someone who wouldn’t make time for me to change their mind. However it was achieved in an immediate, unexpected way. Within a day I remembered a friend who keeps sending me his poetry and that I received some the day before. Previously I found it boring (and the opposite of “bored” in the Thesaurus is “caring”) then I realized I could write and send him a special poem just for him. It rhymed too.

I achieved the goal of performing a miracle of friendship and it will also be an ongoing theme.

This same concept holds true for organizations. Employees are not stupid. They will do what they need to in order to hit their performance targets – even if the end result is detrimental to the overall performance of the business. People are motivated by a clear sense of direction, purpose, vision, or theme. When individuals are incented to “do the right thing” rather than hitting targets, you will find increased creativity, improved performance, and a happier workforce.

Innovation and the Performance Paradox

Today, my article on “The Performance Paradox: When Less is More” was published by the American Management Association.

You may recall that I introduced this concept in a blog entry last month.

What is the Performance Paradox?

The more fixated on your goal you become, the greater your chance of success, right? Yes, but only to a certain extent. It turns out that when people are too fixated on the future, their creativity and overall performance actually diminish.

Read the entire Performance Paradox article on the AMA website.

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