Goal Setting Theory
Goal setting theory is one of the most popular managerial theories in organizational psychology and motivating employees. Setting goals guides and motivates employees to what is seen as important to the overall success of an organization.
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History
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Goal setting theory has been used to increase success and achievement since the early 1800s. In the early 1900s, Napoleon Hill researched and conducted extensive studies with regard to goal setting and the effects on the business world; his research was the foundation for many books including most notably "The Laws of Success" and "Think and Grow Rich". The advancement of goal setting theory continued in the 1960s with the beginning of Edwin A. Locke's 30-year research into goal setting. In 1968, Locke published an article titled "Toward a Theory of Task Motivation and Incentives" where he stressed the importance of clear goal setting and helpful feedback in motivating employees. Locke coined the popular phrase of SMART goals which is still widely used today.
Purpose
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Setting goals serves the purpose of increasing effort and persistence and directing these efforts and attention toward goal-relevant activities. Edwin A. Locke stressed that to benefit from goal setting and motivate employees, goals must be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. Goals need to be clear, easy to objectively measure, challenging but still attainable, relevant to the overall success of the organization, and have a time frame for accomplishing the goal.
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Significance
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Setting the correct goals for a workforce is just as important as the employees' efforts to accomplish these goals. When setting goals, there are four factors that affect the efforts of the employees: difficulty, commitment, clarity and acceptance. To increase performance, goals need to be challenging, because easily attainable goals correlate with low performance and underachievement. Employees need to be committed and interested in completing the goal or the whole process of goal setting is useless. Goals need to be clear, specific, and precise to motivate and direct the employee toward success. Finally, the employee needs to accept and adopt the goal as an indicator of individual success.
Benefits
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Goal setting enhances performance by increasing motivation and efforts, but most importantly through increasing and improving the quality of feedback. The main benefit of goal setting is the constant feedback while working toward accomplishing the goal. Most quality feedback requires constant supervisor interaction, but clear goal setting can give employees consistent knowledge about their progress and aid them in self-evaluations and decisions such as increasing effort or changing methods.
Considerations
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To achieve the benefits of goal setting, goals must be aligned throughout the organization; if managerial or individual goals do not reflect the entire organization goals as a whole, performance will suffer. Furthermore, goal setting can have negative effects on performance for two reasons: an employee can become too preoccupied with accomplishing the goal rather than just performing the necessary tasks, and some tasks are too complicated, innovative, and complex to set simple goals for.
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References
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