Archived Re-Post: Shoot For the Moon

In a recent study by Roose and Williams in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, researchers were surprised to find that difficult goals do not necessarily produce better performance. This contradicts the idea that managers must always set extremely high criteria for success in order to produce high rates of employee performance. While subjects that started with goals more than 170% of their current level of performance were largely unable to achieve them, study subjects with goals that were only 150% of their current performance level actually achieved levels of performance that exceeded 175% of their baseline performance. What this means is that the researchers found that introducing goals that were “easier” (closer to the current level of performance) actually produced levels of performance at or above the “difficult” goal criteria.  From a behavior analytic perspective, this makes sense! Basically, the researchers accidentally stumbled on the principles of shaping and were surprised at its effects on performance. With shaping programs, BCBAs typically reinforce small steps towards a goal, rather than waiting until the achievement of the goal has occurred to offer reinforcement. This allows for the rapid acquisition of new skills and long-lasting behavioral change.  By beginning with “easier” goals, the researchers were essentially reinforcing precursory behaviors- allowing their subjects to contact reinforcement and its behavior-increasing effects without waiting as long as it might take to achieve difficult goals. It is similar to what happens when babies are reinforced for saying anything even close to “mama”. Each time a parent delivers high quality reinforcement for progressively increasing performance, the child produces closer and closer approximations to the final “difficult” goal of speech. Making employee goals close but slightly above their current level of achievement allows the manager to quickly shape closer and closer approximations of the “difficult” achievement criteria.    It is likely that the easier goals were also achieved faster, which increases the rate of reinforcement received by each employee. Consider a first employee that has a quarterly goal of achieving 200 times their previous quarter’s performance.  They would need to work hard every day for 90+ days before contacting any reward for their work. Employee two on the other hand, has a criterion of achieving 10% higher performance prior to reinforcement. In this example then, the second employee’s behavior of “getting better” or improving their performance might be rewarded a dozen times before the first employee. Additionally, were the employees to achieve the same levels of performance improvement, employee two would actually end up surpassing employee one’s difficult goal by the end of the quarter!  Taken together, the study and the behavior analytic principles it exemplifies contain important reminders for performance managers in any industry. To maximize the effectiveness of organizational and employee goal setting, consider the following questions: How large is the gap between current performance and goal performance? If employees do not contact any reinforcement due to goals being too difficult (the gap being too large), their performance will not be affected.How often do employees achieve goals? If goals are too difficult and it takes too long for employees to contact reinforcement, again, performance will likely not be affected. Consider increasing reinforcement frequency by reducing the time it takes for employees to achieve performance criteria. If employees only prefer large-impact reinforcers, token economy principles can be used to increase frequency without increasing cost of reinforcers.How is progress and performance monitored? Some employers worry that setting lower levels of achievement criteria will result in low levels of performance, and in fact this can be true if one is not careful. Performance should be monitored in real-time so that criteria can be changed as achievement occurs. For example, if an employee is achieving an established criterion of 1.25 times their previous performance level but a level of 1.5 is needed, incremental increases in criteria will be more effective than simply establishing a higher, more difficult goal. Increasing performance goals from 1.25 to 1.3 to 1.35, etc. is more likely to result in higher performance overall.  For an easy-to-use dashboard that allows management to monitor performance in real-time, check out the upcoming workshop at ABAI Paris:https://www.abainternational.org/events/program-details/event-detail.aspx?&sid=50465&by=Area  For the original study referenced in this article visit http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01608061.2017.1325820Roose, K. M., & Williams, W. L. (2017). An Evaluation of the Effects of Very Difficult Goals. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 1-31.  For a quick tutorial on shaping basics that you can apply to setting performance goals, visit: http://www.behavioradvisor.com/Shaping.html