3 Popular Goal-Setting Techniques Managers Should Avoid

Understand the pitfalls of these common goal-setting ‘formulas’ before blindly following them.

- Dick Grote

In 2002, Professors Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, two of the best known academic researchers on goal setting, wrote an article in American Psychologist summarising their 35 years of research.

WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS

Setting specific, difficult goals consistently leads to higher performance than just urging people to do their best.

High goals generate greater effort than low goals, and the highest or most difficult goals produce the greatest levels of effort and performance.

Tight deadlines lead to a more rapid work pace than loose deadlines.

Making a public commitment to a goal enhances personal commitment.

Whether the goal is set by mutual agreement or by the boss alone doesn’t make a big difference in goal achievement.

So the argument for strategic goal-setting seemed settled. Set specific, difficult goals with tight deadlines. Don’t be too concerned about whether the goal is jointly set by the individual and manager together, or whether the boss just hands the subordinate the list of goals he expects the subordinate to achieve together with a tough due-date. Let everybody know what your goals are. The predictable result: Increased effort, greater persistence, and better performance.

But many organisations don’t follow Locke and Latham’s advice. In fact, there are three techniques that are common in today’s organisations that go directly against their findings: SMART goals, cascading goals, and using percentage weights to indicate relative goal importance.

AVOID SMART GOALS

By now, everyone who works for an organisation must be familiar with the banal SMART acronym for setting goals. Goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Many wording variations exist, but the essence is always the same.