Caroline Adams Miller

There is no one acronym that fits SMART goals. It ain't science. There's research showing it undermines it. Finally, the last thing I'm going to say about SMART goals, because I really feel so strongly about this. It's even in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence has embedded it in its answers about goal setting. What was I going to say about SMART goals?

Oh, if you take the first definition of SMART goals and you make are realistic, that immediately undermines goal setting theory. Red flags started to fly in my brain in 2005 when I saw that challenging and specific goals, learning goals and performance goals, they have to be challenging and specific if you want the best possible outcome.

Using the word realistic immediately causes you to set what's called low goals. So forget smart goals, buy my book and learn the real science, period.

I think it's really important that we look at this. And again, I don't think this question has really been asked or addressed ever in a book. And it just struck me in February because I signed the contract last December and the book was turned in May 1st. So and it's out November 27. So this was huge. And in February, as I literally drowned 14, 16 hours a day.

I realized one day that all I had listened to that day or that week were what I call dude podcasts. I'd heard nothing but men talking about men to men about success and goal setting and motivation. And I realized that I hadn't heard a single woman even referenced as an example of excellence or curiosity or genius. The criteria for being a genius are skewed against women.

And that's when I realized that self-efficacy theory, Bandura's theory, where you have to have relatable role models, was working subconsciously and unconsciously against anybody who didn't fit that model of mostly white men, because face it, they've been in leadership, they've had the power forever. That's not debatable, really.

That listening to podcasts, reading these books, for the most part, you weren't going to hear or see relatable role models. And I began to ask myself, Are we, and I'm a woman, are we by and large setting smaller goals because of how the world seems to be skewed against us? We don't hear or see relatable role models.

Wikipedia says that 18% of the biographies are of women, 82% are of men, because there's this drive by editing that says women haven't been notable or noteworthy enough, so they delete their bios. So that's just one aspect is what are we hearing and seeing? And for the most part, it's dude walls, dude panels, but now dude podcasts, which is mostly how women get a lot of information.

The other thing I want to say, and there's so much research in the book about this, so it's really important, is that since 1940, perceptions of women have changed in many ways. particularly around competence. Women are now seen as competent because we're in the workforce now. 50% of the workforce, maybe more, is female. So we have many chances to be seen as competent.

Where there has been no change at all in how people perceive women, and that includes how men and women see women, is in this area of agency and being goal-directed and being ambitious. And the research shows very conclusively that any woman who sets pursues and achieves big goals, she is going to pay a huge social penalty.

And the research on it is all over the place because what's happened is you violated stereotype norms. It's called the black sheep effect. You will be ghosted. You will not have your success celebrated. You'll be held to different standards than men are. But for the most part, you will be excommunicated by both friends and other people, both men and women.

They're the rare few who celebrate and build up women who've succeeded. But for the most part, this is the one area that's held constant and we've had no growth whatsoever. So just being me, a woman talking about goal setting is blowing up norms. Blowing up norms because people sitting in audiences are not used to hearing women talking about goal setting. and how the science impacts them.

So I think companies have to realize that many of the reward systems, many of the ways in which people are encouraged to get feedback as they're pursuing goals and part of goal setting theory says you have to have feedback that tells you that you're getting warmer, you're getting closer, or you got to pivot. Women don't get accurate feedback. When they succeed, they often get no feedback.

People go silent. It's very painful. Women are also by and large, not given leadership feedback while men are. And there are a few other studies that came out literally recently, like in the last month that I didn't get in the book. One is about how women, female CEOs are given 1.7 years to succeed. And men are given more than two, almost three to succeed.

Women are deemed failures much more quickly with different criteria. Not only that. quote unquote, failed female CEO, the halo effect follows any female who might be considered by a board of directors to be the next CEO. She's already considered a quasi failure simply because that role model was quote unquote, failed male CEOs. No such halo effect exists. That doesn't happen.

So here's another one. In the workplace, women and men who are given the exact same goals and tasks to accomplish, women who achieve those goals with excellence and on time do not get credit for being that person.

The research shows that men who take longer and work nights and weekends and maybe have the same outcome, maybe it's excellent, they're seen as more successful, more dedicated, more disciplined, and more... dedicated to the company. So all over the place, the ways in which we set goals, value progress, give feedback and reward excellence skews against women.

And I'll give you one last example, because a lot of people study Amazon for goal setting success. They've got this big goal setting program. A program where people are squeezed to death and they're encouraged to rat on their friends and call these anonymous lines and say so-and-so isn't doing their work. I mean, it is a cutthroat Darwinian culture.

But one of the things is they encourage managers to give brutal feedback in front of other people, shame them. And the problem is when women do that, when women adhere to those standards in any culture, They'll pay a penalty. They will pay a huge penalty. So they might be following the criteria, the 14 criteria that Amazon says, this is how you must act to be an Amabot.

So they'll be doing what the company wants them to do, but it's going to completely undermine their success. It will not pay off in the end. So those are just a few examples.