Be a SMART Pyg

Success “The Sweetest thing is this world”. We all aspire to be successful in life. We all try to achieve the success, but the sad yet the true part is not all of us are able to scale the heights that we dream of. It is not that we don’t try, we do try but still the desired result seems to be at another level, just like it used to happen in Mario game, the princess is always in some other castle.

So what goes wrong with majority of people? If we consider the case of majority of people, they do posses knowledge, have a desire to succeed, also they do perform the hard work to full fill their dreams, but yet fall short of them and end up making compromises.

I am not here to give some philosophical lecture, I want to tell the simple yet powerful and practical formula to achieve success. SMART goal and the Pygmalion effect.

“Smart” here is an acronym and each letter defines the traits that should be kept in mind while setting up goals.

S – Specific, Simple, Strategic, Sustainable.

M – Measurable.

A – Achievable, Ambitious.

R – Realistic, Rational.

T – Time based/bound, Tangible.

Pygmalion was a sculptor who lived in Cyprus. Women who lived on Cyprus didn't stay virtuous, so Pygmalion decided to live alone and made a perfect sculpture, Galatea. During the Aphrodite feast, thanks to Pygmalion`s prayers, the sculpture turned into a real person. This was called The Pygmalion effect.

The Pygmalion effect shows that if we want something enough, we'll get it. In management terms it can be stated as : Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. But i feel that the definition has missed an important part, motivation. While it is good to put great expectations on people, it is equally important to keep them motivated to achieve their goals and also one has to be realistic while planning the expected results from a person.

So, how to use these in practice? While setting up targets or goals for an individual or organization goals should be set in a way that they are more than what has been achieved earlier but less than the potential. Goals achieved by you should be below what you have set as the target. In this way you will strive to give your best the next time and improve your productivity in the process. Ultimately the goals will be achieved but this method will always make you believe that there is still room for improvement and hence one strives even harder to overcome the gap, this eventually leads to increase in the potential, which in turn increases the target. Also it is equally important that we keep on performing a periodic review of our goals and make necessary arrangements, if required. So the circle keeps on going, and the individual or organization never feels burdened.

At the advent of my work career I was asked to work for a project as a buffer resource, I had no clue of the work that was expected of me. At that time my manager reduced the target expected of me, this allowed me to have time to get acclimatized with the process and work. Gradually he increased the target for me, so in the entire process I never felt overburdened and my productivity didn't take a hit. Also, that was my first project, had I been not nurtured in a proper way, I might have developed a dislike for work. So being practical also has an effect on mindset of workers.

Well, give it a shot and see the results............keep me posted, how effective you find these steps.