Prioritising: what happens when objectives compete?
Asking people to work faster, improve quality and respond to every request does not yet amount to a prioritisation policy. The useful question is this: how can a manager make objectives compatible with the time available, without leaving each employee to resolve their contradictions alone?
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. These effects depend, among other things, on commitment, feedback, ability and task complexity. A goal directs attention and effort; it does not guarantee that several goals assigned simultaneously are compatible.
Focusing also makes some alternatives less accessible
James Y. Shah, Ron Friedman and Arie W. Kruglanski (2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) show through experiments that activating a goal can inhibit the mental accessibility of alternative goals. This goal-shielding mechanism depends, among other factors, on commitment to that goal. It helps explain why focusing on a priority can support its pursuit while pushing other concerns into the background.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that all a manager needs to do is set a dominant goal and put everything else aside. Yet these studies do not demonstrate that a single priority improves the overall performance of an organisation facing multiple requirements. A compliance obligation or quality threshold does not become optional because a commercial objective captures attention. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What ranking tasks does not resolve
The review of goal-setting research offers no universal formula for allocating time between competing requirements, and the experiments on goal shielding do not directly measure trade-offs in a Geneva business. Ranking tasks is therefore not enough to demonstrate that the workload is feasible. A more explicit approach distinguishes the intended outcome, non-negotiable constraints and requests that can genuinely be deferred.
A practical check in Genève
As part of SHR's « Gestion du temps & priorisation » programme, one exercise involves recording the goal conflicts reported within a team over two weeks: responsiveness and compliance in private banking, stakeholder requests and available capacity in international organisations, production pace and quality in luxury watchmaking, and execution speed and risk control in commodity trading. For each conflict, the manager records the decision, the request deferred or reduced in scope, and the constraint retained. The measure is the proportion of reported conflicts for which a written trade-off decision was communicated before the relevant deadline, verifiable in a log containing no sensitive data. This indicator tests the visibility of trade-offs, not a productivity gain; above all, it identifies contradictions that employees are still being left to resolve. To go further: explore the Time Management & Prioritisation training in Geneva, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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