Goal Setting Motivational Strategy

Motivating employees is a key concern for leaders. It is no longer sufficient for workers to put in a minimal level of effort; instead it is necessary for workers to do more than is expected and be helpful and supportive of others—this is called Organization Citizenship Behavior.¹

One rather simple mechanism that leaders can use to improve motivation is called Goal Setting. Goal Setting Theory states that if a leader is clear with workers about the goals to be accomplished, they are more likely to accomplish the work.² Unfortunately, this rule is violated frequently in organizations; this is one area (among many) where practice does not closely follow suggestions from research. Here are some examples: 

Example 1: A follower expresses that he/she is confused about the work to be completed. Thus, the leader needs to establish an "understanding of work" as a means to reduce ambiguity and set direction. Alternatively, leaders can respond by saying, “do your best” or “apply your best effort,” but since "best effort" is undefined, uncertainty continues and work output is likely to decline.

Example 2: Leader fails to explain the purpose and needed outcomes from a project he/she assigns; this creates confusion because there is no measure of success. If the leader wants solid output in alignment with goals, he or she must share the goals explicitly. 

Example 3: Organizations that set strategies without an effective communication process leave workers to interpret the what, why and how tasks might proceed. This may also engender resistance and other behaviors that are an outgrowth of organizational change initiatives.

These examples represent some of the challenges faced when clear goals are not established. Therefore, effective goal setting is important. The theory states that, “specific and difficult goals, with feedback, lead to higher performance.” ^{1 (p. 299)}  The remaining sections highlight some of the practices of proper goal setting.

Do Your Best versus SMART

Goals need to be specific. For example, the problem with “do your best” goals is that outcomes are not defined.¹ That is, the person assigning the goal and the assignee have not framed success so it is not clear when the finish line has been crossed. An overused acronym that can be applied to goal setting is called SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time specific. When these requirements are satisfied in setting goals, performance and motivation increase. That is, SMART-formatted goals provide procedural guidance and a view of the "sweat" needed to make it happen.¹ “The specificity of the goal itself seems to act as an internal stimulus.”^{1 (p. 79)}

 

Level of Challenge

Challenging goals increase output. Assuming a follower agrees to take on the assigned goals (while some leaders believe they have control followers, in truth they only have the power to influence), workers are more likely to engage and be motivated by challenging goals, leading to higher performance.¹ While this may sound counterintuitive, it is not. “Once a hard task is accepted…employee[s] [will] exert a high level of effort to achieve it.”^{, (p. 79)} There are several reasons why challenging goals work: It (1) calls attention to the goal, (2) invigorates workers and taps the desire to exert energy toward achieving the objective, (3) encourages persistence and (4) motivates the worker to look for methods, perhaps creative ones, to attain the goal.¹ Involvement in setting goal(s) is also importance for increasing the worker’s willingness.

Feedback 

An important feature of successful goal setting is the adoption or creation of feedback mechanisms.¹ For example, if a call center is doing poorly (20% lost-call rate – i.e. customer’s hang up before reaching a service rep) and there is collective agreement among the unit's members that the lost call or abandon rate needs to be reduced to 5%, the probability of reaching the goal will increase if feedback is provided along the way detailing their progress. Therefore, rather than waiting until the end of a shift to learn the results, if an automated system can alert workers of their improvement during the day, it enables real-time corrective action. This can work on individual projects as well—leaders can add milestones as a means to inform the worker of headway. Feedback that can be obtained by the worker directly is better.¹

Type of Goal

Goal setting does not work uniformly in all situations. For example, it works differently if a goal is set for learning a new skill (goal: learn something) rather than if focused on performance (goal: achieve something).² Certain occupations will also respond differently to learning versus performance goals.  For example, salespeople respond better to learning goals.²

Assumptions

The workability of goal setting is associated with some important assumptions:¹ 

• Workers are interested, willing and have the knowledge/skills to accomplish the goal. If a worker does not have the ability or desire to achieve a goal, it is not likely to happen.¹

• Self-efficacy, the internal belief the worker holds about whether he or she can achieve the goal, is an essential ingredient to completing a goal.¹ 

•  The national culture in which the business resides favors individual achievement; in other cultures (e.g. collectivist), goal setting may not lead to the same results.¹

Opportunity Costs and Negatives

Research has discovered some negatives associated with goal setting. As with anything else, there is an opportunity cost associated with assigning a goal; that is, focusing on one goal means the lack of focus on another. Set goals can overpower other important organizational objectives.¹ Nevertheless, goal setting can be a powerful step forward.

Workers who take on goals but fall shy of successful completion may be compelled to lie about completing the project to reduce the perception they have failed.² Therefore, leaders need to monitor the response to set goals.

Goal setting is a powerful tool for leaders in increasing performance and motivation. Goals that are SMART and challenging are more effective than “do your best” goals. Leaders will find goal setting an effective and easy tool to improve organizational performance.

Please feel free to make comments.

References

¹ Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2012). Essentials of Organizational Behavior (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

² Andre, R. (2008). Organizational Behavior: An Introduction to Your Life in Organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.