SMART goals were born from sales. Paul Cardinal illustrates this with a basic example: Sell 48 widgets for $8 each, per year.
Seems straightforward. But the real problems show up fast:
- Do you want to reward the person who sells the most units, or the one who earns the most profit?
- What happens when a salesperson hits the goal early—do they stop trying?
- Should you fire the lowest 20% of performers even if all did well?
In chasing metrics, companies forget the humanity in performance. As Paul says:
“A manager can hand this goal to a salesperson and gleefully watch the spreadsheet tick upward… until they realize the discounts given to close those sales killed profit margins.”
Goals must consider impact, not just output.
