Knowing how to set goals is important, both for your own professional development and for managing others. Nothing too controversial about that. But Craig Wortmann wants you to know that less than 10 percent of us actually achieve those goals. And that’s a problem.

Reaching a goal is “weirdly hard to do,” says Wortmann, a clinical professor of marketing and executive director of the Kellogg Sales Institute.

Part of the problem, he says, is the reliance on popular frameworks like SMART goals (goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timebound). These frameworks leave a few components out, Wortmann says, which makes it hard to actually achieve these goals. We’ll discuss how to remedy this today.

How to Set Better Goals

Wortmann, who has decades of experience as a salesperson, CEO and entrepreneur, says that everything in a SMART goal is sound. It’s just that it’s incomplete, as he explains in a new episode of The Insightful Leader podcast. He encourages people to add in another T and two S’s to the acronym. So SMARTTSS goals, I guess. (Apologies to the spelling sticklers out there.)

Let’s break it down:

Tools: Once you’ve come up with your specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timebound goal, the next question to ask is how you will achieve it, (or how your employee will achieve it if you’re goal setting with them). Wortmann says this question is often missing from conversations about skill acquisition. Goal-setters should know which tangible tools they’ll need to reach their goal. This could be a class or a piece of software, for example. Wortmann also encourages people to remember that their calendar is a powerful tool. Blocking off time to work toward your goal—time no one else is going to interrupt with meetings or calls—can be valuable.

Support: Next, you need to consider who your coaches and cheerleaders are going to be. And, Wortmann says, this shouldn’t simply be your manager. “You shouldn’t just have one coach. You should have multiple coaches.” Your manager may not have the exact skills needed for this goal, and more coaches means more perspectives and more people keeping you accountable.

Stop button: This is likely the least intuitive of Wortmann’s additions. The idea is to ask yourself—or your employee—what it is you’ll stop doing in order to make room for what you are adding to your schedule. Let’s say you’ve calculated that it will take about two hours a week to work on your goals. “Fantastic,” Wortmann says. “What are you going to stop doing? Because you don’t get two free hours. You don’t get two more hours a week than I do.” The solution isn’t to just cram more work into each hour; it’s to be thoughtful about what is lower priority and can be dropped in order to make room for the more important goal.

To hear more of Wortmann’s thoughts on goal setting, you can listen to the full podcast here.

Using Incentive Plans to Motivate Employees

The intrinsic satisfaction that comes from achieving a goal can be a great motivator. But, then again, so can cash. Which is why so many organizations use financial incentives to motivate employees.

George Georgiadis, an associate professor of strategy, has done research using mathematical models to learn which performance incentives work best. The answer, of course, is that it depends, as he explains in this episode of The Insightful Leader podcast. It depends on what you’re trying to achieve and what motivates your employees.

Take the simple performance bonus. There’s a reason it’s very popular: it’s simple, and it can be very motivating! But it can come with some pitfalls. For instance, if you’re giving out a bonus for hitting a particular target, then your employees may lose motivation once they hit that target.

Additionally, there’s always the risk that employees will game the system. “There are lots of things that we can do to manipulate performance measures,” Georgiadis says. “I could achieve those sales by lying to my customers and telling them stuff about the product that’s not true, or I could convince them to buy stuff they don’t need, or I could do things to get customers to buy this quarter … who would otherwise buy in the next quarter, for instance, by offering a special discount that expires at the end of the quarter.”

So some companies may want to consider a contest, where the top performers can share a large prize. When designed correctly, he says, a contest can be highly motivating and cost-effective. But it, too, has its downsides. To learn more about contests, as well as other considerations to keep in mind when designing incentives, you can listen to the podcast episode here or read about his research.

Today’s Leadership Tip

“We shouldn’t overlook the psychological distress that comes with inauthentic behavior.”

—Associate professor Maryam Kouchaki in Insight, on how acting inauthentic at work can backfire.