By Lynn Hargreaves, Fractional Chief Operating Officer and GigX Charter Member I'll admit that I'm a bit cynical about all of the statements coming from companies saying they want to #BeBetter. Having spent my career executing strategies of all shapes and sizes, I am immediately left with the question, “How do you plan to #BeBetter?” After all, without specific goals, action items, and follow-through, those statements are just a PR/marketing exercise. If you want to make a difference, but you’re not sure where to start, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Our old friend the SMART acronym has been helping us get stuff done for a long time so let’s just jump into it:   Specific Your board of directors would never accept a target for the coming year of “Improve Performance.” They would want to know specifically the areas you will improve and by how much. The same goes for #BeBetter. Where will you focus: hiring practices, pay equity, the locations of your stores, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) representation on your board and leadership team, or in your marketing and advertising?    Measurable Simply put, what gets measured gets done. You wouldn’t just tell your board you’re going to improve sales, you would tell them how much and by when. For your #BeBetter action items, how will you measure when they’re done? Is it a simple yes/no? Do you have (or will you create) a specific metric that you will track?   Actionable Let’s face it, you can’t tackle everything at once. And some things will simply be outside of your scope of influence. So pick things that your company has control over and that you already have (or can develop) the capability to achieve.   Relevant While stating your intentions on social media is a start, you need to follow up with relevant actions that meaningfully address core issues. Bring in BIPOC voices from your company and the community to help you do this.   Time-bound Setting deadlines and milestones is nothing new for you so just