"...Ultimately goals can't protect us from ourselves."

I'm from the school of thought that finds goals essential to life. From everyday to-do lists to Five Year Plans, I've always considered goal setting to be a crucial piece of success. If you're not working towards something, then what's the point?

I came across Ready aim... fail: Why setting goals can backfire while perusing the Boston Globe website, or Boston.com. The Ideas section of the Sunday Globe always has some really interesting pieces, but I thought it best to cancel my subscription a few months ago because the mere existence of newspaper in my apartment was a major point of contention for my roommate. Oh well.

Anyway--goals. This article explores the idea that goals are not always the profound agents of motivation and productivity that they are always purported to be. In fact, some goals are very destructive and bad.

For example, take the "notoriously combustible" Ford Pinto. Stop laughing, this is serious!

In the late 1960s, Ford CEO Lee Iacocca, determined to take back the market share the company was losing to smaller imports, announced a crash program to create a new car that would be under 2,000 pounds, under $2,000, and would go on sale in 1970. Desperate to meet the conditions and the deadline, company executives ignored and then played down questions about the safety of the car's design. As a result, the Pinto, with a fuel tank just behind the rear axle, was uniquely prone to igniting upon impact, and 53 people died in such fires.

Clearly, putting a fuel tank in the rear of a car is hardly a good idea considering the high number of rear end collisions that occur EVERYDAY. Cars are not supposed to immediately ignite upon impact, unless you live in the movie Speed, or some equally explosive action film.

But who in the Ford corp voice their concern? Who halted production? Apparently, nobody. Executives at Ford were so goal-crazed that they opted to forgo reinforcing the rear end (at a cost of $121 million) because the projected payout to victims was less ($50 million). See The Ford Pinto Case: A Study in Applied Ethics, Business and Technology if you want to get the full story.

The Pinto catastrophe is a super extreme example of goals gone awry and exemplifies the evil-ish nature that lurks beneath the corporate surface of such things as "cost analyses" and other business tools I only vaguely understand. Now, how does this model of corporate greed relate to individual goal setting?

A professor at the University of Toronto is quoted as saying, "You know how Shakespeare wrote that the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves? Well, the fault is not in our goals but in our values."

Hmm... looking at goals as a reflection of our values, eh? That is an interesting way of thinking about it. This is probably an exercise that few people consciously engage in, but seems like a good way to check in with yourself and make sure you don't value Greed, Gluttony or any of the other Deadly Sins. Here is a possible dialogue to get started:

"Hey self! How u been?"
"Oh not too bad. And you?"
"Well thanks for asking! I've been alright, although that blueberry muffin I ate yesterday was sort of nasty. I might be off muffins for awhile."
"Really? I didn't think it was too bad. Maybe below-average for a muffin, but still edible."
"Yeah, well maybe you should raise your muffin standards. Hey, by the way, what are my goals?"
"Oh you know...." *Thoughtful consideration of various goals*
"Great! Now what things do I value that made me select these goals?"
"Wow, that's a toughie! I'd say..." *Thoughtful consideration of values*

End.

The Globe article doesn't go into the details of personal goal setting too much, but I think the lesson learned from Ford, Enron and possibly our entire banking system is this: Set goals, but be sure to re-evaluate them from time to time to make sure your efforts are going towards a reasonable, worthy cause. It seems like the re-evaluation part becomes increasingly important as you work to attain "life goals".

But really, what do I know? I wouldn't consider myself the poster child for goal setting in any capacity. My latest goal (which was conceived this morning) is to write a screenplay for the Juno-ish version of this movie, which frankly, looks awful but is a good concept. I expect Fox Searchlight will buy it for $5 million, at which point I will quit my temp job and move to Mexico (post-Swine Flu). At quarterly intervals, I will fly my friends and family down to visit me so they can learn Spanish, eat the most delicious food in existence, and get sunburned.

Huh. It sounds like it has Pinto potential. Maybe I'll only ask for $1.5 million, so I have to stay domestic. We'll see.