The New Year here! with it also comes the time for us to start setting resolutions and goals. Or is it? According Peter Berman’s article and Max Bazerman’s paper, you should exercise a little more caution when setting goals for it could do more harm than good.
Goals were found to shift focus away from important but non-specified goals while promoting risk and unethical behaviors that could impact company performance. With that in mind, here are a few key points to consider when setting your goals for 2013.
Find goals the right size
There is no one size fits all for goals. Focus too much on the launch of the product and critical bugs get overlooked. Focus too much on perfection and discourage innovation among employees.
If goals are too narrow, it might draw attention away from other aspects of a task. This video demonstrates how goals can cause someone to miss out on something that will ordinarily be very obvious. This study by Barry Staw found that, by telling people to do their best, people tended to achieve better results than when specific goals were set for them.
Narrow and over specific goals discourage learning by leading employees to believe that time taken away from achieving the goal is inefficient and wasted. While the goal might indeed be important for the company, so can new innovation or process improvement.
Ever had an intern or a new hire join the company and make multiple improvements on your processes? Chances are the changes were not all that complex or complicated to implement. Instead, it is more likely that none of your existing staff had the time nor motivation to implement the change.
The time frame of a goal matters
Sell 25 units in a quarter. Sell 100 units in a year. They sound like the same thing don’t they? In actual fact they are not. While the results may be similar, shorter-term goals promote behavior which have quick results and de-emphasizes things such as research and process improvements.
Having the same goal but in a longer time frame gives room for innovation and time for long term objectives to reach fruition. Having goals that are year long makes it possible to reap the rewards of longer branding campaigns or research and development.
Focus on goals that promote behaviors you want
Most goals tend to focus on results rather than tasks. Consider the typical sales goal of hitting X targets by Y time. Goals like these might promote behavior such as, cutting customers off just because they are not promising leads, stealing high value leads from colleagues or worse underhanded dealing to boost sales figures.
Instead, consider focusing on tasks that have strong correlation with the desired outcomes. For example, instead of having a goal set for sales figures, set a goal that is related to other metrics such as response time to customers. By focusing on tasks, the desired outcome can still be achieved with less risk of negative consequence.
But… Be wary of what you incentivize
For businesses, incentives are very closely tied in with goals and KPIs . While deciding on the incentives, make sure you are rewarding the right actions.
Providing an incentive for a task, reinforces that the task is work and that might have an impact on intrinsic motivation – which is the motivation driven by interest and enjoyment. Also, by providing an incentive or setting a goal, you are effectively telling your employees to emphasize that task above others.
Goal setting is hard
Yes, that’s right. Setting goals should not be something that is done over lunch or even overnight. Finding the right metric is just the first step in setting the right goal, all the possibilities should be considered and possible pitfalls should be identified.
Goals should not be thought of a stand alone silos, but instead should be considered within the context of the company culture and employees. They should be tailored to each individual to make sure that goals are neither too hard nor too easy to achieve.
So while you are setting goals for you company this new year, take a moment to think about what kind of effects the goals might have on your company. If you are not sure what effect a goal might have on your company, err on the side of caution and set a goal that is broad with a long time frame instead of narrow with a short time frame.
Hi
Great article. I’ve noticed some clients find goals don’t work because they’ve missed the first step – sorting out what you really want. Here’s a great book that’s a real help if you struggle to know what you really want:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1907498559
Andrew
I agree, setting goals is something you really have to think long and hard about. I have found that setting monthly smaller goals that lead to year end goals seems to work well. Especially if you plan on offering incentives, as most employees cannot stay focused on or remain excited about it for much longer than that.
Hey Ashlee,
Indeed they are hard, I think you brought up several points in your comment that I would like to clarify.
1) Smaller goals – Then again there is no one size fits all. Monthly goals are good in my opinion, but only if you can find a task to focus on, shorter goals encourage actions with quick results. You then have to make sure you set another goal to ensure longer term results (e.g. self improvement). However, in the eyes of most, goals with closer deadlines are elevated in importance versus those with deadlines that are further away. Simply put, short term goals might de-emphasize the importance of self improvement and innovation.
Let me give you an example, in Singapore, it is very common that companies require you to fulfill a minimum number of hours of training a year. Sounds like great idea, but if you really talk to anyone that attends these courses, they are likely to tell you that it is a chore. The reason is simple and can be explained with what I said earlier – 1) They have shorter term goals to tend to, sales targets etc. the short time frame makes them choose action that results in quick results over those that have long term results. 2) The yearly time frame hitting a number of hours of training a year has de-emphasized the importance of it.
So, what should be done? I have no right answer. But if I were to tackle that problem I would probably do this. First extend the time frame of their shorter term goals, we lay out a few milestones (not hard deadlines but more like yard sticks) to make sure everything is on track. Second, focus on the task of self improvement rather then the number of hours of training.
2) Incentives & excitement – I think one of the points I was trying to drive home is that if you add an incentive to something, you make it work. Work then decreases intrinsic motivation. The way to think of it is simple, if something is work, people find a way to do less. If something is interesting (intrinsic motivation) people find a way to do more.
The key here is that if someone finds something enjoyable. E.g. self improvement and researching new innovation. You do not want to add an incentive to it, you’ll want to let it grow by itself intrinsically.
Wow, this is turning into a blog post by itself
I think its going to be hard for anyone to dispute that goal setting is hard now!