MIT Sloan Management Review Article on With Goals, FAST Beats SMART

To execute strategy, leaders must set ambitious targets, translate them into specific metrics and milestones, make them transparent throughout the organization, and discuss progress frequently.

In 1954, management guru Peter Drucker introduced “management by objectives,” an approach where employees would agree with their boss on a set of goals and work toward achieving those objectives throughout the year. Not even a visionary like Drucker, however, could have predicted how thoroughly goals would come to dominate the modern workplace. In 95% of organizations, according to a recent survey, employees set goals for themselves or their teams.

About the Author

Donald Sull, who tweets @simple_rules, is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Charles Sull is a partner at Charles Thames Strategy Partners LLC.

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