I went back and forth, but eventually decided that leaders’ responsibilities include establishing and lifting the vision of those in his stewardship. Treating the goal as a requirement or a quota degrades both the goal and the worker. Inspiring confidence in the goal and the worker makes miracles happen.
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First: Thaddeus, do you remember who specifically taught that? (I had heard Elder Nelson, but I would be very interested in knowing more.)

I agree! I once had a missionary in my district whose goal was to not get kicked off his mission the last two months. At first, I… then I thought a second, nodded yes, and said “Great goal!”

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Thaddeus wrote: This doesn’t sound like a goal-setting problem. Sounds more like a communication problem.
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I think it’s mainly an administration problem, somewhere between committees and the Seventy, or the Seventy and the Presidency of the Seventy. That seems to be where “communication” falls apart.
“Nasty rumor”–because even though an apostle said/ taught it, no one below him is listening and following it.
How many MP were doing the “How Great Shall Be Your Joy” program while Elder Ballard was giving talks on it in General Conference? Nowhere where I was…
How many MP are doing goals that are according to what the missionaries are taught in the MTC? Nowhere where I was…
While talking to our SP about missionary goals, I was told that they had to have them, and good, or the Seventy would rail on them.
How far up the ladder that goes, I have no idea, but I don’t believe it goes all the way to all the Twelve.

All of which leads us to believe they don’t really care about the results, they just want us to jump through their hoops.

I don’t disagree at all that direction from on high will help with this endeavor, but we are all already doing what we can in that regard. Presumably, that direction is what has kept us from just telling the stake where they can stick their goals.

This doesn’t sound like a goal-setting problem. Sounds more like a communication problem.

The stake needs to do a better job understanding what the ward missionaries are concerned with and what the hang-ups are. The ward missionaries could probably stand to look at the situation from the stake’s point of view (the stake has little means of getting directly involved in missionary work – they want to help in some way).

Both sides ought to search for direction from Father to ensure they are doing the right things and doing them for the right reasons. This above all will get everyone on the same page.

We had another meeting today where our WML wanted our final goals to be set in the five categories chosen by the stake. None of us felt comfortable setting number goals in all these areas, but the WML (who is our previous bishop) after a lot of frustrating discussion finally said, “you know, we just have to set the goals, we don’t have to actually work on them.”

And you know, I think that’s pretty much how a lot of things work in the Church. People are going to ask things of you that are pretty silly, but if you just give them what they want, you can pretty much run your own calling the way you want.

This reminds me of a story I once heard from a family friend who was a MP in the Phillipines. He was asked to cut the mission budget and not spend over a certyain amount. He found the amount to be unrealistic and draconian and protested, but the Church administrators he was talking to wouldn’t budge. He wasn’t able to meet the budget cuts and he started getting some very nasty letters from the administrators in the COB, despite the fact that the mission was thriving in all other ways. He was very concerned until one of the nasty letters came with a handwritten note on it from one of the twelve. It read, “just keep doing what you’re doing.” He never worried about the nasty letters from the administrators ever again.

I had heard a nasty rumor that all missionary goals were to be independent of others’ agency. You have much more control over how many people you will talk to before noon than you do over whether or not someone will choose to follow Jesus after they’ve heard your testimony 10 times.

Goals that depend on others’ agency result mostly in that most horrible of missionary emotions: DESPERATION!!!! OH MY!! BUT!! You HAVE to get baptized or I won’t be AP!! The mission president is counting on me! Yeah. You know. You either throw it up or gag on it.

Group goals? Considering the amount of Spirit and contemplation that go into most, I would say they are usually absolutely worthless–unless they are from those who will do OR
taught and persuaded from on top, able to be met (which usually means someone will teach others how to do what they are “expected” to do), and accepted by those who will do.

The missionary program that worked best for me for working with members, twice/ in two different areas, was “How Great Shall Be Your Joy”, slightly modified.
We would concentrate strictly on what the members could do and did do, and how to improve on that, and never on the results of whether a non-member… or whatever. That means we got rid of the “someone will hear the gospel by mm/dd/year”.
We added a few more steps, role-played, discussed, etc. Did it help? Absolutely. People would start out with little hope, spirit, enthusiasm, and eight names MAX on their list. These were good members who…
Yet within a month, those doing it were on fire–much more so than the missionaries… (is that good or bad?). Names on the list passed 40, invitations were being extended daily, testimonies were being borne (and born), lonely depressed old women were talking to everyone, etc. All we had to do was stoke the fire every so often, be consultants, and meet the friends. (I moved in less than a month after the start of each time.)
Another modification made after my mission was regarding the invitation part–most members were willing to do everything but that, so we made it easy–bring your friend to an activity, and let the missionaries invite. Wonders.

We had a meeting tonight with the stake where we discussed goals. One of the WMLs said that he has never met a missionary goal in his life. Not as a full-time missionary or a ward missionary. We always set goals that are higher than we can reach, and we always fail to reach them. He found this discouraging.

The Stake High Councilman that was there said we ought not to care about whether we meet the goals or not, because missionary work is not about meeting goals. He told the story of his niece that just returned from Ukraine without baptizing anyone. She was not discouraged by this because she has a passion for the people and the work that has nothing to do with whether her message is accepted or not. He said as long as we have the spirit and love for the people and the gospel, the goals will take care of themselves.

With that in mind, I wondered why we even bother setting baptismal goals at all. I didn’t say that, however.

I went back and forth, but eventually decided that leaders’ responsibilities include establishing and lifting the vision of those in his stewardship. Treating the goal as a requirement or a quota degrades both the goal and the worker. Inspiring confidence in the goal and the worker makes miracles happen.

And miracles are what we’re talking about when we set goals requiring the agency of others. We have to trust that baptism is what God wants for these people and that He is preparing them for it. Then we do our best and turn it over to Him.

When we do that, we may not always see our goals met, but we’ll usually see an improvement. Another important role of a leader is to keep people from dwelling on failure and to illustrate the next big vision around the corner.

That’s what worked in the stake mission program for us at that time.

I’m not sure I like someone else setting goals for me, but if they were to set a higher level goal and then leave it up to me how I was to accomplish it, I guess that would work.

Not sure how that would fit into the current missionary program. Since the change from stake mission to ward mission, I’ve been out of the loop.