Alternate Perspective: Goals Gone Wild
While working with animal groups on research studies and strategic planning, I often emphasize setting clear and measurable goals. Goals are important, especially for a relatively “young” cause such as animal protection, which arguably has much to learn from those in the corporate and academic worlds. However, a recent paper from Harvard Business School suggests that goals are overused and incorrectly applied in many situations. The analysis is certainly worth reading, if only to understand the potential downsides when setting your own goals.
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The working paper is entitled “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting.” The authors outline a fairly strong case against setting goals:
We describe how the use of goal setting can degrade employee performance, shift focus away from important but non-specified goals, harm interpersonal relationships, corrode organizational culture, and motivate risky and unethical behaviors. We argue that, in many situations, the damaging effects of goal setting outweigh its benefit…
There are many ways in which goals go wild: they can narrow focus, motivate risktaking, lure people into unethical behavior, inhibit learning, increase competition, and decrease intrinsic motivation. At the same time, goals can inspire employees and improve performance. |
The analysis provides a long list of systemic issues that can plague goal-setting for nonprofit organizations, including:
- Narrow Goals. Setting goals that are too narrow, according to the paper’s authors, can “blind” people to other issues or factors that may impact performance. This is especially problematic when the wrong goals are selected in the first place.
- Too Many Goals. To cover their bases, organizations often set out more goals than people can accomplish. This may be compounded when one’s goals seemingly contradict each other.
- Inappropriate Time Horizon. Goals are too often focused on short-term outcomes when the impact that organizations are trying to make is usually long-term. Arbitrary time limits on goals can also lead some people to “perceive their goals as ceilings rather than floors for performance.”
- Risk Taking. The authors assert that goal-setting increases risky behavior. In some cases this may be beneficial, but more often it can lead to sacrificing equally important factors that may not be tied to specific goals.
- Unethical Behavior. Goals are designed to motivate, but when compensation or other rewards are tied to performance, there is an incentive to unethically pursue one’s goals.
- Dissatisfaction. We typically think that goals should be challenging, but attainable. However, calibrating this can be difficult, and satisfaction or morale can be negatively impacted when goals are too difficult to achieve.
- Goals Inhibit Learning. Similar to narrowing one’s focus, specific goals can lead one to ignore other factors or solutions to problems that might be noticed if goals were less precise. Ironically, ambiguity can lead people to be more creative about finding solutions.
- Goals Create Competition. Competition that comes from setting goals can be a good thing, but it can also “erode the foundation of cooperation that holds groups together” and even inhibit other motives such as altruism.
The list above is just a brief summary of points that the paper discusses in much more depth. The takeaway is this: when setting goals for your animal-related programs and campaigns (and employees), try to find the right balance between establishing specific goals and also accounting for these potential negative results. With the overwhelming and often disheartening work that animal advocates face, focus specifically on avoiding setting too many goals and/or setting goals that are so lofty that they hurt employee or volunteer morale.
Finally, consider the advice of the author’s papers when they suggest treating goals as prescription-strength medicine and not over-the-counter remedies.
For decades, scholars have prescribed goal setting as an all-purpose remedy for employee motivation. Rather than dispensing goal setting as a benign, over-the-counter treatment for students of management, experts need to conceptualize goal setting as a prescription-strength medication that requires careful dosing, consideration of harmful side effects, and close supervision. Given the sway of goal setting on intellectual pursuits in management, we call for a more self-critical and less self-congratulatory approach to the study of goal setting. |