After Agile Coach Camp Germany: Ilja told me that keeping our goals secret works better. Today he send me this video. This message really confuses me. In Bootcamps we have students talk abut their short and long term goals.
In Scrum we have teams set their own goals and it seems to work.
Is it different for teams then for persons? If so then why?
3 comments on “Derek Sivers: Keep your goals to yourself”
It might be that the nice feeling we get from the connection erodes the will to work on them or give us an illusion of being nearer to the goal than in reality.
To me it means that revealing your goals and doing only that is not enough to help you reach them. I don’t think sharing my goals with strangers will help me whatsoever.
The reason generally offered with advice to share your goal is that it allows for your team (family/friends) to support you, giving or asking for help (maybe they have a similar goal) and supportively investigating your setbacks and difficulties.
Also, the main reason for sharing personal goals within your team is to get faster in a state of shared vision, so I guess the context is different.
I can think of many other contributing or impeding factors in my pursuit of a goal :
– is it realistic goal ?
– how do I relate to my goals in general ?
– what is my history with what I want to achieve ? with achieving goals ?
– is it linked to medical or psychological conditions etc. ?
– are there related or nearly identical goals withing the team ? (e.g. some guys want to loose weight and work together)
etc.
Thanks for sharing. That is surprising science.
From my own experience, I believe it. As it applies to my individual goals.
On the other hand, I also find it very valuable to tell people about my goals since they will often share valuable information that I would not get otherwise. So maybe there is a trade-off involved.
Also, I do not think there is any claim that this relates to getting a team into a shared sense of vision or having a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).
@Michael,
I have been thinking alot about this the last weeks, I am more and more convinced that this is not true for teams.
For me in teams this works because we work together to a goal and keep eachother commited.
Yves