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A plane doesn’t treat its original flight path as sacred.
It has a destination, but the route can change. Weather changes. A route closes. The destination may stay the same, but the plane adjusts its path.
Recalculation isn’t failure. It is how the plane stays on course.
What if individual goals worked the same way?
We set goals based on what we know at the time. Then the year happens. We learn. Problems appear. Priorities shift. Something that seemed important becomes less important. Something else needs attention.
What a person needs to learn, solve or contribute can change too.
Yet the goal we set at the beginning can still be the measure of success.
Someone may spend months responding to what they have learned and what the work now needs from them, only to find that they are still being measured against what they originally said they would do.
The person moved with reality. The measurement stayed in the past.
Perhaps the question isn’t whether goals should be fixed or flexible. Perhaps it is about what needs to remain stable.
An organization needs a clear destination. People need to know where they are heading and what they are moving towards together. Yet the people moving towards that destination are not standing still. They learn. Their responsibilities change. They discover new problems. What they need to learn, solve or contribute changes along the way.
The organization may need a stable destination. The person may need a different route.
Perhaps we sometimes confuse the two when we set individual goals. A clear direction does not necessarily require a fixed route.
Instead of asking, “Did the person achieve the goal that we set?”
Perhaps we should ask
“Does this goal still reflect what this person needs to learn, solve, or contribute today?”
~ Megha.
Founder @ OutoftheBurn
Ambition with Ease.
