How Managers Can Establish Smarter Performance Goals for Their Teams

Managers frequently establish standards in order to conduct successful performance reviews for their staff. According to perception, offering a bonus after reaching a given milestone is one of the finest methods to motivate people to achieve their best. Though this is beneficial in certain cases, it almost always leads to lower work satisfaction or burnout if employees are unable to meet objectives despite their best efforts. This does not, however, imply that the employee isn’t performing effectively. Rather, once the task is conducted practically, it seems to be quite distinct from what it looks like in the mind. Hence, Chicago Booth’s Ed O’Brien proposes a few practical strategies for managers to create better performance goals for their teams in this YouTube video on the Chicago Booth Review channel.  

Setting standards for conducting performance evaluations, according to Ed, is a fairly regular part of our daily lives. Parents frequently establish guidelines for when they will praise or punish their children. We have a tendency to create milestones for ourselves, which we often utilize to measure how productive we have been. However, Ed says that a more formal approach to this may be observed within firms when managers establish certain criteria to evaluate the work of their employees. Ed suggests that experiences range greatly from forecasts. The way tasks seem in the mind differs from how they appear in person. Ed believes that employers must recognize that there are periods in which employees may face difficulties. Such circumstances are not taken into account when establishing performance goals. As a result, he believes that while having specific criteria for when to reprimand and when to reward an employee is great, the actual implementation must rely on the individual’s attitude and the amount of threshold reached. Finally, he believes that, depending on the situation, the pre-set rules are frequently breached. As a result, before disciplining their employees, managers must consider if the rules were breached willingly and without justification or if they were forced to do so in order to achieve something greater. 

Performance goals do indeed help employees reach their full potential. However, the same goals can also dishearten the employees if, despite their best efforts, they are unable to reach their targets. Hence, the preceding text offers effective insights on the subject from Chicago Booth’s Ed O’Brien.