In Sion, can communicating progress reduce motivation?
Should a progress update emphasise completed milestones or the work still ahead? For a manager, the question is not only how to report the situation accurately, but how that presentation may shape the next effort.
What the literature establishes
Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbach (2008, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) show experimentally that highlighting completed or remaining actions does not have a uniform motivational effect. When commitment to a goal is uncertain, completed actions can strengthen it; when commitment is established, remaining work can do more to sustain effort. A positive progress report is therefore not, by itself, a universal motivational tool.
The mechanism: commitment or progress
Ayelet Fishbach, Tal Eyal and Stacey R. Finkelstein (2010, Social and Personality Psychology Compass) present a review distinguishing two functions of feedback: informing people about their commitment to a goal and about their progress towards it. Favourable information can reinforce the goal’s value, but also suggest that sufficient effort has already been made. Conversely, a shortfall can prompt additional effort or weaken commitment, depending on how it is interpreted.
The hasty conclusion
One might conclude that managers should highlight successes to new employees and delays to experienced teams. These studies do not justify such a mechanical distinction: tenure does not measure commitment to a particular goal. The useful distinction is between doubting whether a goal is worth pursuing and needing to know what remains to be done. (our executive and employee training programmes)
The limits of the evidence and of dashboards
Experiments on goal pursuit and a theoretical review do not establish the effectiveness of a communication format in Sion-based organisations. Nor does a dashboard reveal whether its recipients interpret progress as encouragement or as implicit permission to slow down. Task interdependence, available resources and safety constraints may matter more than the presentation of the update.
A practical check in Sion
Within SHR’s Communication programme, an exercise could focus on a non-critical milestone: preparing documentation for hydropower maintenance, an administrative rollout in healthcare, organising the grape harvest or preparing for the alpine tourism season. Across comparable progress updates, test two presentations containing the same facts and the same next action, one opening with achievements and the other with remaining work, without altering safety instructions. For each version, record the proportion of agreed actions completed by their deadline, alongside any changes in resources or workload. This indicator would support a local check, without treating an observed difference as causal evidence when the situations are not comparable. To go further: explore the Communication training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Communication in Sion
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