In Vevey, setting demanding goals without overlooking the means
Should leaders raise targets to improve results, or first clarify the conditions under which those targets should be met? For SHR — Swiss Human Resources and its « Leadership d'excellence » programme, this question offers a way to develop a specific skill: setting performance expectations without obscuring the means used to meet them.
What the literature establishes
Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham (2002, American Psychologist) synthesise research showing that specific, difficult goals generally support performance more effectively than vague instructions to do one's best. This relationship depends, among other things, on ability, goal commitment, feedback and task complexity. Setting a target therefore replaces neither learning nor the resources needed to achieve it.
The mechanism that can misdirect effort
Maurice E. Schweitzer, Lisa D. Ordóñez and Bambi Douma (2004, Academy of Management Journal) demonstrate experimentally that unmet goals can encourage the misrepresentation of performance. In their experimental setting, this tendency is particularly pronounced when participants fall just short of the target. A goal can thus encourage effort while also creating an incentive to report a result higher than the actual outcome.
The premature conclusion
It would be excessive to conclude that ambitious goals necessarily make teams dishonest. The two articles illuminate different dimensions: mobilising effort and the risk of distorting reported results. The managerial question then concerns the conditions of achievement: which means are acceptable, and how should a shortfall be handled without encouraging people to conceal it? (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot settle
An experiment on performance reporting does not measure the frequency of deceptive behaviour in a company on the Vaud Riviera. Nor does the review of goal-setting research provide an optimal level of ambition that can be applied directly to every function. One common practice therefore remains poorly grounded: raising a numerical target without checking whether skills, constraints and opportunities to report difficulties have changed.
A practical check in Vevey
In Vevey's setting of global food businesses, group headquarters and Riviera SMEs, a proposed exercise for « Leadership d'excellence » is to examine a team's goals before its next review. For each goal, check for three written elements: the expected result, a relevant non-negotiable constraint — quality, safety or compliance — and the procedure for reporting a risk of falling short. Then calculate the proportion of goals containing all three elements, retaining the documents as evidence, and repeat the check at the following review. This indicator measures the clarity of the management framework, not personal integrity or a performance gain. To go further: explore the Executive Leadership training in Vevey in the canton of Vaud, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Executive Leadership in Vevey
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