Article Summary

For the article

Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal Setting by Lisa D. Ordo nez, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Adam D. Galinsky, and Max H. Bazerman

Submitted By Vipula Roy

An assignment submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for TMG 640

School of Business Management

National University

Professor Patrick Olson

Date June 4, 2011

Introduction

In this article, Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal, Ordo nez, Schweitzer, Galinsky, and Bazerman (2009) have highlighted the negative impact of goal setting practiced by organizations. As opposed to the popular belief that goal setting is a solution to boosting employee motivation and organizational performance, the article discusses the different ways goal setting can negatively affect employee and organization performance. The goal setting advocates have long ignored the side effects of the practice and its time that researches on goal setting carefully discuss both the inspirational and insidious effects of setting goals. Summary While goals can motivate employees to improve performance, when the goals are too specific, it narrows down the focus of employees who ignore the other important issues unrelated to the goal but highly related to organizational performance in the long run. Too many goals for employees to pursue can also be damaging. Gililand and Landis (as cited in Ordonez et al., 2009, p. 8) emphasize that when there are too many goals both qualitative and quantitative, the employees tend to work towards the quantitative goals which can be measured and avoid working towards qualitative goals. A time limit for achieving goals also has a huge impact on how the goals affect the organization. Mostly the employees focus on achieving the short term goals and overlook the long term growth of the organization. While goal setting advocates continue to believe that goals when highly challenging promote commitment and performance among employees, they have long overlooked the darker side of stretch goals. Challenging goals promote risk taking behavior and adoption of riskier strategies that has been a reason behind so many failures in the business world. Ordonez et al. (2009) cite the example of Continental Illinois Bank. In pursuit of its goal of matching the lending magnitude of leading banks in 1970s,in short span of 5 years, Continental aggressively pursued borrowers and bought risky loans made by smaller banks. Such rushed and risky behavior got the bank finally bailed out. Goals can also limit negotiation performance. Ordonez et al. (2009) explain, It is also quite easy to imagine that a negotiator who has obtained concessions sufficient to reach his goal will accept the agreement on the table, even if the value-maximizing strategy would be to continue the negotiation process (p. 9). Unethical behavior is another side effect of challenging goals. One of the interesting facts to know is that employees indulge in unethical behavior when they have almost achieved the goal and have just a little gap to cover. Goals can encourage unethical behavior in two ways, either using unethical ways to reach goal or misrepresenting their performance to establish that they have achieved the goal. While goal setting cannot be singled out for unethical behavior, it definitely is one of the reasons which have not been acknowledged in the business world. Stretch

goals can also infuse higher sense of dissatisfaction among employees and affect their behavior. While pursuing a stretch goal, an employee may come out with better performance but not being able to achieve the goal leaves the person with doubts of self-efficacy which can be detrimental. Goal setting in an organization inhibits both learning and co-operation; employees get so busy with achieving the goal that they refuse to try out alternate ways to do the same. Performance is boosted with a compromise on learning. While setting learning goals may help in such situation, setting the right learning goals can itself be challenging. Goal setting also promotes an environment of competition instead of cooperation. When employees get busy with achieving their own goals, they tend to stop helping their coworkers. This can lower overall performance of the organization. Sometimes the goals can defeat the very purpose they are to serve. Goals often promote extrinsic motivation for taking up a job instead of intrinsic. Goal setting might be overused for motivating people to perform. This might lead to employees not engaging in jobs for its intrinsic value. Goal setting is a challenging process in itself. It becomes even more difficult for reasons that not all people perform the same for any given task. While goals can be too easy for some and too difficult for other, tailoring them to individuals is not possible. Matching rewards to efforts for achieving goals can be difficult. At the same time setting the right incentives is also important. Defined goals can not only limit performance but sometimes goals are so defined by executives so that they achieve it easily and reward themselves. While goal setting has been known to improve employee and organization performance, it is important that managers review and consider the interaction between goal setting and organizational context and also include monitoring, to get the best out of the exercise of goal setting. The article enlists a set of questions to help executives find out if a goal setting is necessary. These questions include aspects like speficity, challenge, risk taking, unethical behavior etc. Conclusion So goal setting can narrow focus, motivate risk-taking, lure people into unethical behavior, inhibit learning, increase competition, and decrease intrinsic motivation. Its time that proponents of goal setting start broadening their researches to acknowledge and include the stealthy negative aspects of goal setting and lay down a clearer picture of goal setting outcomes. Goal setting is not a panacea for organizational problems and must be exercised with ample monitoring. More research outcomes may prompt organizations to practice goal setting when necessary instead of considering it a pre requisite for success.

References Ordonez, L.D., Schweitzer, M.E., Galinsky, A.D. & Bazerman M.H.(2009,February) Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over prescribing Goal Setting .Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.nu.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ba464927c7f8-4a8f-8a48-c0b126751987%40sessionmgr113&vid=3&hid=101