Goal setting is a great self leadership skill. Yet, do you think $1,500 is a reasonable charge to learn how to write 2 SMART goals?

Maybe you are thinking that no one would pay $1,500 to walk away with 2 SMART goals committed to writing. But in a national seminar publication, that is what is being charged in a time management 2 day seminar workshop.

Along with the 2 written SMART goals, there is a plethora of additional learning objectives. However there is nothing tangible to say that you can actually transfer these newly learned or relearned concepts from learning to performance outside of you waling away with 2 written goals.

Some of these learning objectives are more about supporting self leadership skills than actual time management skills. For example, one of the learning objectives is how to deal with difficult people during a meeting. To be able to truly deal with difficult people requires practice because human beings are irrational creatures. If there are 10 people at this seminar, how much time will you have to practice what you have learned? Probably zip, none, nada.

Unfortunately, individuals and businesses are conditioned to this type of learning where you spend a lot and then make a presumption that the actual learning has transferred to actual performance. Then 6 months later, at least 90% of what was previously learned has been forgotten. (And I am being generous by believing 10% is retained when it is probably less than 5%.)

When you have an actual learning event unless there is some additional reinforcement such as committing the SMART goal to actual writing, there is a significant likelihood that in 16 days, you will remember only 2% of what you learned.

Just think back to those days of cramming for an exam. You probably remembered about 50% especially if you had read the material only once. The second day, you remembered half of half and by day 16 you are down to 2%.

So before you pay for that next seminar, determine how you can ensure continued application of those newly learned concepts as well as the performance deliverables. Otherwise, you may end up paying $1,500 just to write 2 SMART goals.

P.S. By the way, if SMART goals were truly effective given that the SMART criteria has been around for 50 years, why cannot people achieve goals with greater consistency?