Goal Setting For Teams

Like I talked about in my last post, goals can make or break a team. Setting the right goals is critical to success, in any form. A goal has to be SMART. SMART goals are a clever acronym that was taught to me in high school, that I'm now realizing hold a lot of value. A SMART goal is:


Specific: It has to clearly define what you and your team wants to reach. Vague goals, such as "Be better" are worthless to a team. Generally, your team will just continue on as they were, or maybe try harder for a short amount of time before eventually falling back into old habits. A goal has to inspire permanent change in order to be effective.


Measurable: Are we getting close? What steps are left to completing this goal? It's important to have milestones for yourself, so you can see what's left and how far you've come. These can serve as helpful motivation to your team, but if you can't measure your progress, a goal wont aid you with meeting your companies ultimate vision.


Achievable: Is there a clear endpoint for this? At what point can you celebrate success, if you haven't decided what success looks like? Achieving a goal is an incredible boost for moral, energy, and enthusiasm for the company, and not achieving it can has the opposite effect. As a leader, it is important to encourage your team no matter what, and if you do your job well and set the right goals, you'll hit them every time.


Realistic: This can be tricky, because pushing the limits is important, as is having BHAG's (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) to drive you forward. However, as a leader, you have to know what your team is capable of, and be sure to take it just a few steps at a time.


Time-able: At what point do you stop and evaluate where you are, versus where you started? For me, this is one of the most important parts. A goal can be fantastic, but if it doesn't have an end then progress will be made at the slowest possible pace. Always put a cut-off date on it, and stay true to that.  If the goal isn't met, that's not the end of the world, because it allows for reflection and the ability to decide why the team fell short. Self As long as forward progress has been made, you should consider it a success.


As important as these things are, you need a vision so that your goals have a combined purpose. I'll be talking about that more in my next post.

Mandates and Quality

Myself and my coworkers are working tirelessly these days to get a company started, which you'll be hearing more about in the coming months. During one of our first meetings, while talking about names, ways to get money, types of productions to put on and such, the question was raised, what's our mandate? 

Hm. Dictionary.com defines mandate as "a command or authorization to act in a particular way on a public issue given by the electorate to its representative." What does that mean for a developing theatre company though? Our "electorate" is the public, the people coming to see our shows. We then need to be their "representative" on stage, with the content we produce.

What's that entail though? Engaging work? Emotionally charged work? Political commentary? Answering those questions then leads into a make or break question for a company.

How do we define quality?

How do we judge ourself? What standards do we hold ourself to, so that we can go back and evaluate our own work? Ticket sales? Was the audience in tears? Did we have fun making that show? Once any company, can evaluate their own work they can begin to grow, to do better next time. 

More on this to come.

Hello World

Hello world. That's how you start these things right? I'm here to introduce myself to you, say hello, maybe you'll introduce yourself back? Probably not, considering the amount of page views I'll have at the time of this post will be zero. Oh well.

I'm here to talk about Theatre, Leadership, and Technology.Those are what I do, they are what gets me up in the morning and keeps my up at night. 

I've been working in Theatre exclusively for 3 years now as an General Technician, Stage Manager, Assistant Stage Manager, Lighting Technician, Lighting Designer, and Carpenter. I've been a Multi-site Producer for a church of over 3000 people, crewed rock shows with sell out crowds, and set up a mic for stand-up comedy with a crowd of ten. 

Leading people is one of my favourite things. Getting to know them, and uniting a team to a goal where everyone feels a sense of accomplishment at the end is very important to me. One on One training is the single best thing I've gotten, and I make it a goal to give it back to everyone that I have the chance to influence. 

Technology make the world go round these days, and changes on a day to day basis. Being a super nerd, I wake up daily and read Wired on my iPad. Or my iTouch. So you'll probably hear me geeking out about this  or that new development from time to time.

That's enough about me though. Happy reading!

-Jake