Newton's First Law of Motion (law of inertia) is often simplified as "A body persists in a state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force." This fundamental law encapsulates what we, at the Fort Hill Company, have learned about creating and completing development goals that produce individual performance gains and business results. Our experience is with over 100,000 training and development participants during the past ten years.

This article is part one of a two- part series in which we explore what we must do to create a goal that combats the natural forces typically holding us in a state of rest. In part two, we help you define and leverage environmental support so that you can drive your goal to completion.

Part 1: Creating a Development Goal

Why do we set development goals?

There are a myriad of reasons. Perhaps, upon reflection of the year prior, we want to do something better in the New Year. Maybe we are not satisfied with our current level of performance or job responsibilities. We could have been asked to write a goal at work as part of development initiative or training course we just attended.

Whatever the reason, we are here; it is time to write a goal. Where to start?

In short, context matters. Understanding what new skill we wish to acquire or hone is a necessary first step. But, planning where we will apply our new skills (a.k.a. the practice field) is more important. Our target should be priority work already on our plates.

To dually combat the natural forces that keep us at rest and increase the chances that we achieve lasting change and performance gain, we must consider three key points when we write our goal:

1. Focus on one area

There is a concept used among various ideologies called primary virtue. It is said that a primary virtue, if practiced, will yield all the rest. We believe this to be true for personal development as well - practice and become an expert in a core skill and it will force improvement in contingent areas of development. For example, practicing delegation touches communication, team, listening, and coaching. We must resist the temptation to over commit ourselves, identify a primary virtue, and apply it to our priority work.

2. Use a simple goal formula

We often need a prompt or template to get us started on a path forward. Throughout our ten years of working with people to change their behaviour or apply new skills following training, we have found the following formula to be extremely useful and powerful in helping people write focused and outcome based goals. Because the formula explicitly asks for both the skill and the outcome, we have been able to increase energy around goals and overcome peoples' innate resistance to change.

In the next {X= insert reasonable and appropriate time to complete}, I will {Y = describe competency, behavior, or skill you wish to improve} so that (Z = describe the business benefit and/or performance improvement you expect to complete as a result of my Y focus)

3. Go public immediately

By going public, we mean telling a coach, our team, classmates, and manager what we intend to focus on. In doing so, we have accomplished two important things. First, we have assembled a support team to help us change. Development is a team sport and not something we can do in a vacuum; it ultimately involves other people. We must enrol others to overcome our natural resistance to change. Second, we have created accountably for ourselves. It is easy to dishonour our commitments when we are only answerable to ourselves. It is much harder when it means disappointing those we care about.

In short, streamlining our focus, aligning our development to clear outcomes, and going public are three critical factors that will determine whether we have a chance at becoming one of the few who assembles our personal inertia in a way that delivers lasting change and performance gain.

"Where did I go wrong? Probably at the beginning." -Berry Gordy, Former Chairman / President of Motown Records

As this wonderful quote from Berry Gordy highlights, how we start is a critical determinant of where we end up. It is a necessary step but not sufficient to ensuring we actually get there. In part two of this article, we will examine how to increase our odds of completing our goals.

---

Written by Michael Papay and David Timby from the Fort Hill Company. The Fort Hill Company specialises in improving the business impact of training and development. Companies that use Fort Hill's methods and tools get a greater return on their training investment.