The limitations of network goal-setting
Kerstin Tebbe, Founder, Collective Mind
What if we stopped setting goals for our networks?
Ok, well we don’t have to go that far. But what if we reconceived of how we define and measure our network achievements?
I was recently intrigued by a Ted Talk from Emmanuel Acho, Why you should stop setting goals (yes really). Sharing his experience of the limits of goal setting in his life, Acho claims that “the risk of goal setting is greater than the potential reward” because a goal, by definition, is focused on the end rather than the possible.
He recognizes the rationale we’ve been taught about goal setting — that we think we must set explicit, well-defined goals in order to motivate ourselves and satisfy our desire for feedback. But he believes another approach is more effective for facilitating progress: we should set objectives rather than goals. As Acho states, a goal is the end towards which energy is aimed while an objective is effort aimed in a direction. While goals limit us by fixating us on a specific end, objectives harness the freedom of possibility which is limitless. As he notes, “if you want to run a mile without stopping, you’ll work towards it and you might do just that. Having never known if you could have run a marathon”.
Within networks, the power of collective action — which is complex, messy, and emergent given all the actors, ideas, activities, and dynamics at play — can’t easily be aimed towards overly specific ends. And if it could be, we would in fact be limiting the potential of our networks, fixating on something specific rather than a range of possible outcomes we could achieve. Furthermore, goal setting assumes a level of control over those ends. But nobody acting within a network can control the outcomes — not network managers, funders, or even the most active members — because networks and their outcomes are products of the collective and the connections and interactions therein. Perhaps for these reasons, we hear from networks of all sorts that setting metrics to measure results is a perennial challenge. (This challenge also arose as a key theme of our research on funding networks.)
The limits of goal setting — and specifically of setting predetermined metrics — for a network are real. What Acho describes as possibility, we could describe as emergence for networks. Emergence is what we can’t anticipate or even imagine, the product of multiple forces and dynamics, some of which are visible and known and others that aren’t and can’t be. When we focus on overly specific network goals, we focus our attention and effort on particular actions, outputs, and outcomes without leaving space for this emergence. We may not see the ideas, opportunities, and collaborations that arise from the interactions and connections taking place within our network. But emergence can take us in directions that create even greater impact, making it one of the most profound elements of working in networks. Setting objectives instead of goals allows us to harness emergence, following the possibilities that arise.
So, if we set objectives for our networks instead of goals, how then do we know what we’ve achieved? An objective is effort aimed in a direction. If we define broad-based objectives for our networks, we can interrogate our progress towards them through methods that capture both what might have been anticipated and what wasn’t. A method like outcome harvesting focuses on collecting or “harvesting” information about the outcomes achieved using a range of methods that engage those involved — in this case, network members and perhaps other stakeholders — in the processes and activities to achieve those outcomes. We at Collective Mind have undertaken outcome-harvesting approaches to evaluate network impact and have even developed a light-touch tool for use with network members to collectively capture their outcomes on a regular basis. We can use fit-for-purpose approaches like these with networks that allow us to convey outcomes that are expected and unexpected, tangible and intangible, and that range in type from changes in attitudes, knowledge, and behavior to shifts in the operating or policy environment and more. This kind of expansive approach can give us far greater insight into the unique outcomes that networks are capable of and what our own networks have accomplished.
