Hard Goals Are the Best Motivator

You might be surprised to learn that motivation, as a serious topic for psychological study, was pooh-poohed 50 years ago. So begins a 2002 paper published by business professors Edwin Locke and Gary Latham titledBuilding a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation: A 35-Year Odyssey. It’s worth a read.

Basically, Locke and Latham surveyed the literature on goal-setting and motivation, and drew several conclusions. Here they are in a nutshell.

Goal-setting works, and hard goals work best

Difficult goals yield the highest level of effort and performance.
Encouragement (“Do your best”) is not as effective as goal setting.
Motivation increases because hard goals:

Focus our attention on goal-relevant activities, and away from irrelevant activities.
Energize us, resulting in more effort.
Prolong our effort either to make deadlines, or stay in it for the long haul.
Compel us to test out know-how and strategies until we find a solution.
Our level of motivation is influenced by:

Commitment – the most important factor when goals are difficult
Importance – our belief in the need to achieve a goal
Confidence – our belief that we can succeed
Feedback – knowing our progress in relation to the goal
Task Complexity – our ability to master the skills needed to achieve difficult tasks
Is all this new? Probably not. But it serves as a good reminder that:

we work most effectively when we rise to the occasion
understanding the underlying principles of motivation is helpful in pulling together a goal framework that works effectively for us
what works to motivate us, works to motivate others too

Written by Michael

Michael Douglas has held senior positions in sales, marketing and general management since 1980, and spent 20 years at Sun Microsystems, most recently as VP, Global Marketing. His experience includes start-ups, mid-market and enterprises. He's currently VP Enterprise Go-to-Market for NVIDIA.

Strategy Studies