Goal Setting, Ephemeral or Enduring?
December 13th, 2005 by Vihar ShethPosted in Politics, Society
I’ve been doing a considerable amount of thinking on organization, goals and effectiveness. To the chagrin of my employer I must admit that my recent pensiveness is unrelated to work, but instead to democracy and grassroots efforts to change the direction America is headed.
My girlfriend says my frustrations related to “making a difference” arise from thinking too globally. She’s right in that thinking globally without also thinking locally is a recipe for mental disaster. Time will pass amid a whirlwind of amazing ideas with no implementation or effort, leading eventually to feelings of in competency, inadequacy and deficiency. And thinking about only your next meal, like an animal, will leave you with no direction or accomplishment . . . but if you’re ignorant enough you won’t even know it so who cares!
Apologies for referencing a business school acronym but setting S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and tangible) goals never seemed to applicable.
A group with which I’m involved and have referenced before, Change for Missouri, is going through some soul-searching. It’s core leaders have established a relatively effective strategy for engaging members in topical, but short-lived efforts. These are effective and important, but are better described as one-off efforts to influence immediate political behavior, not strategic efforts to influence long-term policy. In the group’s past is the experience of organizing, rallying and planning effectively to achieve a long-term goal . I’m trying to get the group back there. Unfortunately nothing ubiquitously motivational exists at the moment. In the past was the 2004 election. Now, the American public is frustrated beyond description but by a million little fire ants and not one gigantic, heinous monster . . . though one could argue quite convincingly a clueless, seething monster commands the damned ants.
We must first decide what do we want to do? The consensus among the majority of those I’ve talked with is that the group should focus on candidate recruitment and campaigning. The group’s experience matches this objective and the future is most susceptible, in the longer-term, to this type of action. If it is agreed upon to proceed in this manner it is of utmost importance that it be the primary, if not only, driving forced behind the group’s actions. Personally, I find my distracted perpetually by fleeting thoughts, ideas, bits of information . . . this type of flippancy can not plague our group if it’s to be effective. Change will not be seen tomorrow but helping the right people get elected in the right places will turn the tides in the tsunami of deceit, misrepresentation and incompetence that’s washed ashore our once great and now faltering country.
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