All types of businesses have one thing in common. They all utilise targets as a tool for pushing their business in a certain direction. We have all come across this target system throughout our working life. When I used to work retail, back in my university days, I remember the Team leader showing me my performance statistics during my last shift and what they need to be in my current shift. Forever trying to sell more products and hit the companies daily, weekly, monthly and yearly targets.
Targets pop up in all aspects of business; from sales targets to attendance targets. And you can understand the reason behind this. All businesses want to grow and targets are an easy method of facilitating that growth. For example, if a manager of a factory wants to see an increase of 10% in production then they will simply set it as a factory target. Print off some target graphs and slap it to the nearest pin board, expecting to see improvements by the next day.
American psychologist Edwin Locke, in the 1960s, studied the power of target setting and what it could do for businesses. He motioned the idea that employees are motivated by business targets; and by developing appropriate targets your business will grow. However, since Locke's research the use of business targets has become heavily saturated.
A simple example of how businesses display there targets to their employees.
Lisa Ordonez, and others in the paper Goals Gone Wild in the Harvard Business School journal, describe target setting as an "over-the-counter treatment" for managers to improve their employees. They go on to explain, that just like prescription medication, targets need to be utilised carefully and in the correct dose. However, in the business world targets are consistently being abused.
A prime example of this can be seen in Microsoft. Around 2001 to 2011 Microsoft utilised a system that ranked their employees in order of individual productivity, known as forced ranking. Microsoft then proceeded to base targets off of these individual rankings. This caused chaos inside of Microsoft. Individuals that ranked highly refused to work with each other as they had to spread their skills across smaller groups. This caused Microsoft to destroy its own innovation as it failed to keep up to date with technological trends.
Businesses need to ask one simple question when developing targets – Why would the employees want to achieve this?
The Motivation behind Targets
In the last 2 or 3 decades, businesses have lost sight of the most powerful of motivating forces, despite the fact that it is free and would be welcomed by most of the workforce. Due to the lust for growth and expansion, businesses are blinding themselves from the power of intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation is a type of motivation that refers to doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable. A person is intrinsic if they act on their own volition rather than for an external reward or pressure. It is being autonomous. For example, rewarding an employee with a gift voucher if they reach a target is not intrinsic motivation. However, an employee reaching a target to benefit their own personal career progression is intrinsic motivation.
Why should businesses consider intrinsic motivation?
Intrinsic motivation is free and it works. If you have "Employee of the Month", only one person can make that each month and some will never make it - how does that help them? Intrinsic motivation works on almost everyone at whatever level they are at; granting them a feeling of personal achievement regardless of skill.
A study in 2011 investigated how intrinsic motivation affects the work ethic and commitment to nurses working in the healthcare industry. A sample of over 400 nurses was involved. The results of the study demonstrated that nurses who had increased levels of intrinsic motivation were more committed to improving their efficiency in their work.
"employees feeling like pawns for management"
Further evidence to support the facilitation of intrinsic motivation was found in another study in 2011. The researchers examined survey answers from over 200,000 employees across the federal government sector. The survey contained questions that investigated an employee’s overall type of motivation - "My work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment" (Intrinsic Motivation). The researchers found that employees with high levels of intrinsic motivation at work had an increased level of job satisfaction and turnover retention. Intrinsically motivated employees were more likely to have higher levels of efficiency at their job.
Targets should not only benefit the company/manager but they should also benefit the employee; not through external rewards but through internal gains. Employees should be able to observe a daily or weekly target and have an inner desire to reach it. Employees need intrinsic motivation if you want higher levels of efficiency and target success.
If you are a manager or a team leader then you are used to setting targets and you understand the importance of hitting those targets on time and successfully. When you next set a target, take a moment to consider the effect of intrinsic motivation and how to implement it.
Here are some ideas:
People feel intrinsically motivated when they have at least some autonomy over the task at hand. Ask your employees what they think they can achieve; or what area they believe needs improvement. Just by doing this you install a sense of ownership over the targets, rather than the employees feeling like pawns for management. Through this sense of ownership employees will become more intrinsically motivated to succeed at the task as they have a hand in creating it.
