What influences workplace performance? How can we make sure that we motivate people to do great work without becoming a dictator? Steven Naudé investigates.
Becoming a dictator is guaranteed to bring out the worst in your employees. If they feel that they are working under duress, they will probably show resistance or “work to rule” – in other words, stick to the letter of the contract and do the absolute minimum to avoid getting fired. We’re looking for discretionary effort, which is “going above and beyond” what their employment contract states.
What are the components of meaningful targets (goals), and how can we apply these in the workplace? Edwin Locke and Gary Latham spent decades working on goal-setting theory, and most of their data is derived from workplace studies. Over decades of research, they investigated, tested and refined a model which they believed would ensure the best possible performance in the workplace.
Setting the right kind of goal is very important. If the goals are too tough, the people will not even bother to try to achieve them. If they are too easy, they’ll also not put in much effort. But if the goals are a stretch, you’d think that would be ideal, right? Only sometimes.
There are many variables that influence performance in the workplace. Here are just four of them:
The reason for the goal: If you explain carefully to your team that you’d like them to work extra-hard and improve their current performance by 120% so that you can buy a new Ferrari, the chances are you’ll be disappointed. The rationale for the goal needs to be explained and motivated. And the motivation needs to resonate with what the people want to achieve rather than the boss’s need to stroke a battered ego.
Reward resonance: The reward has to be appealing to the person performing the task or aiming for the stretch goal. In some cases, there is sufficient internal motivation for someone just to try harder to see if they can reach the goal (even without a reward). While this is great, it can rarely be sustained. If there is a reward for achieving the goal, the chances of success are greater. But the rewards have to matter to the person doing the work. It does not always have to be more money, but the reward has to be personally meaningful to them. Time off, a change in duties, a beer on Friday, all of these are things that could be motivating factors. The best option is to ask the person what would be an appropriate reward for them.
Participative goal setting: Get everyone involved in setting the goal – right? Not necessarily. There were many experiments around this point because the results were conflicting. In most cases, the goals set by individuals resulted in poorer performance than reasonable stretch goals set by their leaders. Only in cases where the goals and rewards were clearly explained was there a better result (and only fractionally better), and that was in the level of motivation rather than the outcome. So the message is to discuss the goal and agree on a valuable reward rather than letting the person set the goal themselves.
Self-efficacy: The single most significant variable in goal achievement is self-efficacy, which is a social scientific term for “believing you can do it”. This factor, more than any other, influenced the performance of individuals. This is the area in which sports coaches spend the most time: “Getting into the heads” of the athletes and letting them believe that they can do better. The same applies to the workplace. Self-efficacy is a complex thing because it is influenced by a number of other factors such as whether the person has done the task before, what other pressures exist (such as a deadline), what resources are available to help them learn or to help them come up with strategies to complete the task. The role of the manager/leader is critical in motivating the person and in terms of giving them the tools they need to succeed. Those tools could be physical, peer support, time, money, or any other resources available.
Next time you need to achieve a goal with your team that will be a stretch, your chances of success will be greatest if you start by explaining the rationale for the goal (this can be a corporate objective) then discussing the rewards (“What’s in it for me”), then explaining the goal itself in great detail before talking about all the reasons you believe the person or the team can achieve the goal. What are you going to do to help them achieve it? You could also ask them what they think they’ll need in order to make the task more achievable. And, whatever you do, stick to your promises. A broken promise (especially in relation to rewards or support) will spell doom for the next time you ask the team to go above and beyond.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066X.57.9.705