Goal setting involves the development of an action plan designed to motivate and guide a person or group toward a goal. Destination determination can be guided by goal setting criteria (or rules) such as SMART criteria. Destination determination is a major component of the personal development and management literature.
Studies by Edwin A. Locke and colleagues have shown that more specific and ambitious goals lead to improved performance over easy or common goals. As long as the person accepts goals, has the ability to achieve them, and has no conflicting goals, there is a positive linear relationship between goal difficulty and task performance.
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History
Cecil Alec Mace conducted the first empirical study in 1935.
Edwin A. Locke began examining goal setting in the mid-1960s and continued to set research goals for over 30 years. Locke got the idea for goal setting from Aristotle's final form of causality. Aristotle speculates that goals can cause action; thus Locke began to examine the impacts of human activities. Locke developed and refined his goal-setting theory in the 1960s, publishing his first article on the subject, "Towards Task Motivation Theory and Incentives", in 1968. This article establishes a positive relationship between clearly identified goals and performance.
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Drafts
Goals that are difficult to achieve and specific tend to improve performance beyond goals that are not. Goals can be made more specific by:
Setting goals can affect results in four ways:
- Options
- Goals can narrow one's attention and direct their efforts toward activities that are relevant to the objectives and irrelevant actions of the goals.
- Goals can make someone more serious. For example, if someone typically generates 4 widgets per hour but wants to generate 6 widgets per hour, then they can work harder to generate more widgets than without that goal.
- Perseverance
- Goals can make a person more willing to work through setbacks.
- Cognition
- Purpose can cause a person to develop and change his behavior.
Goal Commitment
People perform better when they commit to a certain goal. Through an understanding of the effect of goal setting on individual performance, organizations can use goal setting to benefit organizational performance. Locke and Latham (2002) have indicated three moderators indicating successful targeting:
Extending three from above, the level of commitment is influenced by external factors. Like the person assigning the goal, set the standard for that person to achieve/do. This affects the level of commitment by how committed the individual is to the person assigning the target. External factors can also be individual role models. Say if they are trying to be like their favorite athlete, individuals are more likely to pursue more effort for their own work and goals.
Internal factors can come from their level of participation in work to achieve goals. What they expect from themselves can grow their success, or destroy it. Also, individuals may want to appear superior to their peers or competitors. They want to achieve the best goals and are known for it. Self-esteem to achieve goals, is usually one of the main keys that keeps individuals committed.
Target-performance relationship
Locke and colleagues (1981) examined the behavioral effects of goal setting, concluding that 90% of laboratories and field studies involving specific and challenging goals led to higher performance than either easy or no goals.
Locke and Latham (2006) argue that it is not enough to encourage employees to "do their best". "Doing your best" has no external reference, which makes it useless in generating certain behaviors. To gain some form of specific behavior from others, it is important that this person has a clear view of what is expected of him/her. Thus, the goal is very important because it helps a person to focus his efforts in a prescribed direction. In other words, the purpose of familiarizing behavior.
Feedback
Without proper feedback channels, it is impossible for employees to adapt or adapt to the necessary behavior. Managers must track performance to enable employees to see how effective they are in achieving their goals. Providing feedback on short-term goals helps to maintain motivation and commitment to goals and without it, goal setting is unlikely to succeed. Feedback should be given to the strategies followed to achieve the goals and outcomes achieved, as well. Feedback on strategies used to get targets is very important, especially for complex work, because challenging goals place a focus on results rather than performance strategies, thereby undermining performance. Feedback delivered correctly is also very important, and the following guidelines can help to provide good feedback:
Technological advances can facilitate the provision of feedback. Systems analysts have designed computer programs that track goals for many members of the organization. Such computer systems can maintain the goals of every employee, as well as their deadlines. Separate methods can check employees' progress regularly, and other systems may require a perceived slacker to explain how they intend to improve.
A more difficult goal requires more cognitive strategies and well-developed skills. The more difficult the task, the smaller the group of people who have the necessary skills and strategies. From an organizational perspective, it is thus more difficult to successfully achieve more difficult goals, as resources become scarce.
Honing goal setting using temporal motivation theory
Locke and Latham (2004) note that goal-setting theory has no "time perspective problem". Taking this into consideration, Steel and Konig (2006) used a temporary motivation theory (TMT) to account for the effects of goal setting, and suggested a new hypothesis about a pair of moderators: target difficulty and proximity. The effectiveness of goal setting can be explained by two aspects of TMT: reduced returns and temporary discounts. Similar to the phrase "the sum of the parts can be greater than the whole", the division of the project into several sub-goals, directly, appears to take advantage of these two elements.
Employee motivation
The more employees are motivated, the more they are stimulated and interested in receiving goals. These success factors are interdependent. For example, the expected outcomes of goals are positively influenced when employees are involved in goal-setting processes. Not only does participation increase commitment in achieving the goals set, participation also affects self-efficacy. In addition, feedback is needed to monitor a person's progress. When feedback is not present, the employee may think he is not making enough progress. This can reduce self-efficacy and thus undermine long-term performance outcomes.
In business
In business, goal setting encourages participants to make substantial efforts. Also, since each member has set expectations for their role, little space is left for marginal efforts that are inadequate for unnoticed.
Managers can not always encourage motivation, or keep track of employees' work continuously. Therefore, goals are important tools for managers, because they have the ability to function as self-regulatory mechanisms that help employees prioritize tasks.
The four mechanisms in which goal setting can affect individual performance are:
- Goals focus attention on activities that are relevant to the goal and away from objective irrelevant activity.
- Goals serve as energizers: Higher targets push for greater effort, while low goals encourage lower effort.
- Goals affect persistence; resource-related constraints affect the speed of work.
- Goals enable knowledge and cognitive strategies that help employees cope with the situation at hand.
In private life
Common personal goals include losing weight, achieving good grades, and saving money. Strategies for goal setting begin with a big picture; looking at the big picture before breaking it into smaller components allows one to focus on the main goal. Once the main objectives are set, broken down into smaller, more accessible components will help in the planning part to set goals. These smaller and more accessible goals promote self-esteem and provide instant feedback to keep individuals on task.
Time management is the practice of completing tasks that are systematically assigned by the boss or yourself efficiently and on time. Time management steps require the identification of objectives and develop a plan that maximizes the efficiency and implementation of the objectives. There are many useful mobile apps that help setting personal goals; several categories include budgeting, fitness, calendaring and productivity apps.
Limitations
The goal-setting theory has its limitations. In an organization, a manager's goals may not be aligned with the organization's overall objectives. In such cases, the goal of an individual may be a direct conflict with the employing organization. Without aligning goals between organizations and individuals, performance can suffer.
For complex tasks, goal setting can actually interfere with performance. In this situation, an individual can become preoccupied with fulfilling goals, rather than performing tasks.
Some evidence suggests that goal setting can foster unethical behavior when people do not achieve the goals they set.
Goal setting may have weaknesses inhibiting implicit learning: goal setting can encourage a simple focus on results without an openness to exploration, understanding, or growth. The solution to these restrictions is to define target learning and target performance , so that learning is expected as part of the process of achieving goals.
Developments in theory
Goal selection
Self-efficacy, past performance, and other social factors influence goal setting. Failure to meet previous goals often leads to lower goal setting (and more likely to be achieved).
Learning objectives
There are times when having a particular purpose is not the best option; this is the case when the goal requires new skills or knowledge. Tunnel vision is a consequence of a particular purpose; if one is too focused to achieve a particular goal, he can ignore the need to learn new skills or acquire new information. In these situations, the best option is to set the learning goals . The learning objectives are general goals for achieving knowledge in a particular topic or area, but ultimately can lead to better performance in a particular goal related to the learning objectives.
Locke and Latham (2006) associate this response with metacognition. They believe that "learning objectives facilitate or enhance metacognition - that is, planning, monitoring, and evaluating progress toward achieving goals". This is required in environments with little or no guidance and structure. Although work usually has set goals, goals and individual achievements can benefit from metacognition.
Framing
Framing, or how goals are viewed, influences performance. When a person feels threatened and or intimidated by a high purpose, they appear poorer than those who view goals as challenges. Framing goals as advantages or disadvantages affects one's final performance.
Affect
The goal realization has an effect on influence - that is, feeling of success and satisfaction. Achieving goals has a positive effect, and failing to meet goals has negative consequences. However, the effect of the goal is not exclusive to one field. Success in one's work can offset a feeling of failure in one's personal life.
Group goals
The relationship between group goals and individual goals affects group performance; when a compatible destination has a positive effect, but when the goal is not appropriate, the effect can be detrimental to the group's performance. There are other factors working in groups, and that is a shared factor; there is a positive correlation between information sharing in groups and group performance. In the case of group goals, feedback needs to be linked to groups, not individuals, in order to improve group performance.
Goals and properties
At the ground level, two types of goals are learning goals and performance goals ; each having different properties associated with the selected destination.
Learning objectives involve the tasks in which the skills and knowledge can be obtained, while the performance goals involve easy-to-accomplish tasks that will make a person look successful (thus the tasks where mistakes and assessment may be avoided).
A more complex mediation study of properties is done by Lee, Sheldon, and Turban (2003), which yields the following results:
- Oriented orientation (low trust in one's ability) is associated with target avoidance motivation, and more generally, associated with lower target levels and lower performance.
- Control orientation (extrinsic motivation) is associated with avoidance and purpose of the approach. The target approach is associated with higher target levels and higher performance.
- The autonomous goal (intrinsic motivation) leads to mastery goals, enhanced focus, and therefore improves performance.
Macro level target
Macro-level goals refer to goal-setting applied to the company as a whole. The purpose of the cooperative reduces the negative feelings that occur as a result of alliances and group formation. The most common parties involved are the company and its suppliers. Three motivators for macro-level goals are: self-efficacy, growth target, and organizational vision.
Purpose and conscious consciousness
The effects of the subconscious and conscious goals are independent, although the conscious goal has a greater effect. The interaction effect is that priming can increase the effect of a difficult goal, but it has no effect on an easy goal. There are also situations where priming and conscious goals conflict with each other, and in this situation conscious goals have a greater effect on performance.
General actions and non-action goals
The goal of action is believed to promote a sense of action, whereas inaction goals are thought to diminish a person's tendency to take action. Common action goals can be either doing something, doing a certain action, or going somewhere, whereas a typical inaction goal can be a break or stop doing something.
The overall activity governed by objectives and inactivity trends is derived from biological and socio-cultural conditions. Recent research reveals that most countries have a better attitude toward action than inaction, although some countries judge actions and do not act slightly different from others.
Recent research has shown that people tend to choose not to take action when they make decisions between choices where uncertainty can produce negative results, but they prefer action without acting in their daily behavior when there is no consideration required. Timothy D. Wilson and colleagues found that many people "prefer to give electric shocks to themselves rather than be left alone with their thoughts".
See also
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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