The Negative Side Effects of Goal Setting
The following two articles argue that “over-prescribing” goal setting can prove counter productive or result in many negative side effects:
In the first article, Stanford’s Harikesh Nair argues that eliminating sales quotas could stimulate profits by 9%:
“While commissions may spur effort in unequivocal ways, the quota carrot can sometimes result in agents gaming the system. "Those who have already made the quota in a current compensation cycle may have an incentive to postpone additional sales," says Nair. "Alternatively, those who perceive they have no chance of making the quota in the current cycle have a perverse incentive to postpone their effort to the next cycle.”
Consistent with the Stanford article, the Harvard article outlines the many potential “Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting”:
“In this article, we argue that the beneficial effects of goal setting have been overstated and that systematic harm caused by goal setting has been largely ignored."
