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Stefan Söderfjäll
Christopher Svensson
A little book on goals
Umeå, 2020
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A little book on goals
ISBN: 978-91-89161-75-7
© 2020 Stefan Söderfjäll och Christopher Svensson
Translated by Darren Packman
Graphic Design: Daniel Åberg/Åbergs stilus et forma
Cover: Daniel Åberg//Åbergs stilus et forma
Cover picture: MJgraphics/ShutterStock
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5 CONTENTS Introduction .......................................... 7 What is a b ook on goals all about? ............................ 7 So what is a goal? ............................... 13 Why do goals work? ................................................. 17 Further reading .......................................................... 21 The different types of goals ............ 25 Defining goals ............................................................ 26 What type of goals should you set and when? ........ 34 Individual or common goals? ................................. 40 Further reading ......................................................... 46 Goals, motivation and psychological needs ......................... 49 Different types of motivation .................................. 50 Psychological needs ................................................... 52 Further reading .......................................................... 61 Criteria for effective goal setting 63 Setting clear goals ...................................................... 64 Up for the challenge? ................................................. 73
6 Feedback ..................................................................... 78 Participation .............................................................. 83 Engagement ............................................................... 85 Further reading ......................................................... 90 Pitfalls and risks ............................... 93 When teamwork stops working ............................... 94 Same goals every time for everyone? ....................... 95 When the goal becomes too important ...................97 False sense of security .............................................. 98 Stress .......................................................................... 99 Narrow focus ........................................................... 100 Further reading ........................................................ 103 And finally. ........................................ 105 About the authors ............................ 109
Introduction
What is a book on goals all about?
Most organisations work, or at least they say they work, with goals in one way or another. It’s common practice for business goals and directives to be created and presented by company owners, boards and politicians. These goals are expected to guide them and us by breaking down activities into more specific goals and strategies for different parts of the organisation, such as regions, departments, teams and individuals. The truth is, however, that this method of goal management often looks far better on paper than it does in practice. In reality one of the areas for development most frequently highlighted in employee surveys are goals (or the lack of them). Many employees, for example, seem to find goals difficult to understand or don’t feel they are being followed up properly or often
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enough. They also feel that some goals do not feel relevant or meaningful to the business they are in, that there are just too many of them, that some goals contradict each other or that there simply aren’t enough of them.
Research into goals is extensive and gives us a very different picture of goals than the one we often encountered in our everyday working lives. This research promotes goals and goal setting as a highly effective way of motivating and engaging people, encouraging wellbeing, reducing stress and influencing results and work performance.
Just why current research gives us such a different picture than the reality we often experience remains a bit of a mystery. One possible explanation could be that the research-based knowledge we have about goals has, for some unknown reason, not yet managed to reach us out in the working world.
Managers and employees often find it difficult to know what to do when working with goals. It is not so much a question of not wanting to, but more about feeling uncertain how to make goals work in practice.
We hope this book can serve as a bridge between this current research and our working lives, and that
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some knowledge of effective goal setting can cross over to you. This book does not attempt to provide detailed instructions on how to work with goals for the simple reason that such attempts are usually far too superficial and therefore ultimately rather ineffective. Instead this book should be considered an attempt to transfer knowledge of some of the mechanisms and principles that should be considered when working with goals in your own business. Think of it as a helping hand when setting your own goals. When you have finished reading it our hope is that you:
• have improved your understanding of what goals and goal setting are.
• can distinguish b etween different types of goals and understand the underlying conditions that make them more or less effective.
• understand the difference between individual and common goals and when best to apply them.
• have a better knowledge of the underlying motivational mechanisms behind effective goals and goal setting processes.
• understand the most important principles of effective goals and goal setting processes.
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• b e aware of the pitfalls of setting goals and become better equipped to avoid them.
This book is primarily aimed not at researchers but at managers and employees living in the real working world. For this reason references will not be continuously cited. There is, however, a list of further reading divided into different categories at the end of each chapter for those of you who want to dig a little deeper into the latest research on goals that this book is based on.
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So what is a goal?
You may not be aware of it but the chances are that even as you read this sentence you have at least one goal that’s controlling your behaviour. Let us ask you two simple questions:
• Is it more likely you’ll finish reading this sentence than not finish reading it?
• Did you start reading this chapter with the intention of not reading it all the way through to the end?
Our guess is that you answered YES to the first question and NO to the second. It just seems so pointless to start a chapter in a book with the intention of not finishing it. Even more strange would be to begin reading a sentence without wanting to get to the end of it. If our assumption is correct then it is fair to say that your behaviour is based on goals; specifically the
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goals to finish reading both a sentence and a chapter. If you scratch your arm in an attempt to relieve the itch from a mosquito bite, or when you drive a little too fast to get to a meeting on time you are also acting on the basis of goals. In this case the goals are to stop itching and to not be late for your meeting.
Put simply a goal is something we either consciously or unconsciously try to achieve or avoid. A goal is defined above all by two things. The first is that it lies ahead of us and is not something that’s happening right now or happened in the past. Saying “my goal is to reduce my waistline by five centimeters so I can fit into that turquoise shirt for last year’s midsummer party” highlights the problem of having goals that are set in the past.
The second element of any goal is that it describes a condition that we either wish to achieve, preserve or avoid. To try and “sell stuff for a million”, “repeat last year’s amazing results” and “reduce sick leave by ten percent” are all examples of this. The opposite of these are the occasions when we act with a ‘wait and see’ mentality. Failing to book a holiday because we adopt a carefree attitude of ‘seeing where the wind takes us’ is an example of acting aimlessly and without any clear goals.
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It may actually be positive to act rather aimlessly now and then. It creates a sense of openness and provides an opportunity to do virtually anything that seems appropriate in the current situation. Our private lives usually provide more freedom for such a spontaneous approach than is the case in our working lives or in other organised contexts (such as sports).
People also seem to differ greatly in the extent to which they actively set clear goals for themselves and then plan a course of action to achieve them. Some people want goals for almost everything they do, while others seem to be less goal-focused.
Clear differences can be seen, for example, in:
• how you create goals.
• how much awareness you have of one or more specific goals when you do something.
• how carefully you plan and structure your time and resources to reach your goals.
• how long and patiently you work to achieve your goals.
• how clear and specific your goals are.
• how many goals you have and how far in the future they are set.
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