- PERFORMANCE vs. LEARNING GOALS
Tasks in the real world are dynamic and evolving. These changes often occur without warning or are caused by agents outside one’s control. It has been established that goal-setting has a powerful impact on performance in these settings. Goals fall into two categories; Performance goals (results oriented) and Learning goals (focused on lessons learnt). Mone and Shalley (1995) conducted a 3-day trial on multiple performances and found that in focusing on goal attainment, people appeared to be spending more time thinking about how to perform well rather than actually performing well. Worse still, the dysfunctional effects of a specific high goal increased over the three-day period while the performance of those with ‘do your best’ goals became increasingly better. Mone and Shalley reported that this finding highlights the difference between mindlessly changing strategies (focus on achieving) versus searching systematically for effective ones (focus on learning). Judging from this result we support the view that while setting goals is important, setting an outcome goal - rather than a learning goal -- can have a negative impact on an individual's performance.
Independent of Mone and Shalley and with no knowledge of their findings, Dawn Winters and Gary Latham (Winters and Latham, 1996) found that urging people to do their best led to higher performance than setting a specific high performance goal. This is because a performance goal draws attention to the end result while a learning goal draws attention away from the end result. This view is supported by Frese and Zapf (1994) who established that high performance is not always the result of sheer effort and persistence; it is also the result of cognitive understanding of the task as well as the strategy necessary to complete it. It is therefore safe to say that while performance goals may diminish one’s confidence and deplete their self-esteem, learning goals encourage one to view failure as an opportunity to learn. Further research in later studies confirmed the type of goal can determine the end result and that it was better for individuals to set learning goals rather than performance goals. As Gary Latham (2006) wisely put it, “A performance goal can lead to a highly unsystematic "mad scramble" for solutions. This explains why for example a student or employee with a learning goal has a higher commitment to their goal than one with a performance goal.
- IMPACT ON MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE IN ORGANIZATIONS
“Goal setting is the single most researched topic in the field of motivation, thus, while goals may be only part of the picture for understanding purposeful action, they are a very big part,” (Cary L. Cooper and Ed Locke, 2000). The question for researchers and organisation theorists is, of course, to understand why individuals select some actions and not others and why they switch activities. Why do people work as long or as hard as they do? Why do they choose one set of activities or actions rather than another?
Goal-setting theory is not limited to but focuses primarily on motivation in work settings and has been used extensively in sports too. Organisations want employees to work hard and stick with it, but they also want them to work in a precise direction and on the right thing. Goals present such a direction. Once goals have been set, this helps an organisation to choose the correct motivation towards achieving this goal. A purposeful motivation has built-in direction, employees know where they are going and can make corrections/adjustments if required. This inspiration works in a sustained manner and exerts an even stronger pull as an employee comes nearer to the goal and helps motivate individuals even if the existing situation is unpleasant because the mental image is of where they want to be. Leading theorists including Cooper & Locke (2000), maintain that reaching goals is part of the human condition, and that almost all voluntary human activity is at least partially caused by goals.
The concept of self-efficacy has been integrated with the goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 2002). It has been found that people with high self-efficacy set advanced goals, are more dedicated to assigned goals, discover and use better task strategies and reach their goals. They also respond more positively to negative feedback than do those with low self-efficacy. There is also evidence suggesting that goals and self-efficacy reconcile the effect of visionary leadership on performance (Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1996), meaning that goals assigned by a leader can also affect self-efficacy in that they are an expression of the leader’s confidence in an employee. Figure 1 below shows factors that contribute to self-efficacy for most individuals.
It must be noted that ability is a major contributor to self-efficacy and personal goals and can have an independent effect on performance. Most companies measure ability using performance-appraisal tools and this is often reflected by assessment of previous performance. Given that there is a compelling case for learning goals' superiority and the positive impact they can have on leadership, performance appraisal, and employee development (Seijts & Latham, 2006), if used well, these appraisals should avoid giving feedback that is focusing on performance, instead they should address learning goals by drawing attention to the discovery of effective strategies to attain and sustain desired future results. Goal setting in a firm should help employees to think smart. It should tell employees what an organisation wants them to do rather than what it doesn’t want them to do by emphasising positive benefit which unconsciously motivates the employee. Written out goals and feedback identify self-sabotaging behaviour and help an organisation to recognize weaknesses and strengths through results. For example if management sets a goal for the facilities department to adopt a work environment (open plan office) which is not really liked or accepted by the employees, this could end up contributing to poor performance and rising conflict among employees. Setting specific performance goals could affect an employee's choice about what to focus on, or which actions are goal relevant and which ones are not.
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
“The common belief is that when goals are established in collaboration with management, employees feel ownership of the goals, which enhances employee commitment and lead to improved productivity” (Locke & Latham, 2002). However, it is our view that nearly all executives understand the importance of goal setting and yet, most organizations have no idea how to manage specific, challenging goals. For example, some organizations may ask employees to double sales or increase staff retention but fail to provide those employees with the knowledge they need to meet these goals. In the fast pace of today’s society, it is unwise and even morally wrong for organizations to assign employees such goals without equipping them with the resources to succeed - and still chastise them when they fail to attain those goals. This lack of guidance often leads to stress, burnout, and in some instances, unethical behaviour.
It has been suggested by theorists that goal conflict undermines performance if it motivates contrary action tendencies (Locke, Smith, Erez, & Schaffer, 1994). The organisational goal and the goal of an individual manager and the personal goals of an employee are sometimes in conflict. For example working to attain the organisation goals could be unfavourable to the compensation of a manager if they are rewarded more for the performance of the people they lead than for the performance of the overall organisation. To solve this problem, difficult goals of the person must be brought into line with the corporation’s goal. “Without goal alignment, personal goals may have a detrimental effect on a corporations performance” (Seijts and Latham, 2000).
Personality traits and cultural background also play a large role in both personal and organisational goal-setting. This is largely due to the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy. Some people seem to attract difficulties even in straightforward situations where none previously existed by using complex goal-setting techniques. When things are going well they will unconsciously find a way of disrupting them so that they can continue in their heroic struggle, always creating some drama in achieving their goals.
- CONCLUSIONS
We concluded that people who have a learning goal orientation see ability and learning as flexible and changeable and are more likely to set higher goals and perform well than people who have a performance goal. The correlation between goal commitment and performance is significant. In addition, we found that it is advisable for an individual or organisation to focus on what is already working to help with achieving future goals. Employees should not be forced to help achieve organisational goals – they should be influenced and inspired through great leadership to want to help the organisation they work for in achieving its goals. We also reached the conclusion that the best way for an organisation to achieve its goals is working closely with highly motivated individuals.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
'Goals and Goal Setting: Achieving Measured Objectives’ - By Larrie Rouillard Edition: 3, 2002 page xii
Learning goals or performance goals: Is it the journey or the destination?
By Gerard H. Seijts and Gary P. Latham Ivey Business Journal May/June 2006
Cary L. Cooper, Edwin A. Locke, (2000) Industrial and organizational psychology; London: Wiley-Blackwell
Websites
, - last accessed: 12 April 2009
A situation-specific form of self-confidence. In sport, self-efficacy refers to a performer's belief that he or she can execute a behaviour required to produce a certain outcome successfully.
While Standard leadership assumes employees should generally do as they are told, Visionary Leadership increases efficiency by moving decision-making responsibility to the frontline where efficiency is achieved with limited supervision and trust is a core value.
The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come 'true'.
