For centuries, alchemists tried to turn lead into gold. Modern consultants, those fascinating creatures who can convert any living idea into a lifeless deliverable in PowerPoint, have achieved the exact opposite: they turn gold into lead with a single phrase, “SMART goals.” A magic formula capable of melting inspiration into procedure, and draining the soul faster than a Monday morning in an open-plan office.
Ah, the frosty charm of that acronym: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound. In other words: folded neatly, dried thoroughly, and filed accordingly. Ambition? Yes, but only if it fits the spreadsheet. Creativity? Sure, as long as it respects the table headers. Dream big, but submit it to the steering committee before the 15th, in a PowerPoint deck with no more than six bullet points per slide.
It’s a bit like asking a poet to align their rhymes with the KPIs of the sales department. Or Leonardo da Vinci to deliver a masterpiece that ticks all the boxes of the Three-Year Strategic Plan. Want to change the world? That’s fine, just don’t forget the deadline. And make sure you can justify the ROI.
Take Newton, for example. An apple falls. He thinks: gravity. Today, he’d have to file an incident report, open a Jira ticket, and get the discovery approved by Risk & Compliance. As for Galileo and his telescope nonsense? Too vague. No metrics. No intermediate milestones. Rejected by the PMO.
The best part? When they tell you it’s all to encourage creativity. Of course. As long as it’s scheduled, budgeted, and preferably not too disruptive. Creativity in a box, delivered with an instruction manual and a checkbox for stakeholder alignment. As if imagination could be scheduled between 2 and 4 p.m., excluding coffee breaks.
And then comes the annual review. That exquisite moment, suspended in corporate time, when you’re invited to reflect on your “value creation” with the solemnity of a will being read aloud. That’s when the magic happens: they explain, with a calm but firm tone, that your lateral thinking is “not measurable” and that you should “objectify your intuition.” Ah, that sweet managerial newspeak, where thinking is reclassified as a statistical anomaly.
Translation? If it doesn’t fit the spreadsheet, it doesn’t exist. That flash of brilliance you had in the shower or during a bout of insomnia? Out of scope. Your ability to connect distant ideas and open up new perspectives? Non-compliant with the HR framework. But hey, if you manage to innovate very hard while filling in every cell of a pastel-colored Excel sheet, congratulations, you’ve just invented compliant thinking. Innovation award incoming.
It’s like judging a Michelin-star chef on how well they follow the instructions on a frozen meal. Or evaluating a novelist by the number of characters per page, excluding spaces. But don’t worry, with a “personal development plan,” you might one day learn to think inside the box. If you deserve it.
Next time someone asks you to make your goals SMART, try this one: “Maintain a hint of sweet madness in a world that worships conformity as a cardinal virtue.” Watch their reaction. Right before they offer you a tailored improvement plan.
#CreativityInCaptivity #SMARTAndSoulSucking #ManagingMyInspiration