The dark side of goals

As we reach the half way point of 2017, I’m sure that many of you have recently been, or will soon be, in the process of reflecting on the goals that you, your team, or even your organisation set at the beginning of the year. This is understandable, especially when considering that over 40 years of research that has suggested that goal setting can improve performance through channelling people’s motivation, attention and persistence.¹ However, could goals also carry detrimental side effects that are largely neglected? I think that, under certain circumstances, they can.

One well-known story that illustrates this is that of Ford Motor Company in the late 1960s. At this time, the CEO of Ford announced the goal of producing a new car that cost less than $2,000 before 1970. This challenging goal and tight deadline led many managers to avoid the necessary safety checks. As many of you will know, it turned out that this car, the Ford Pinto, had a faulty design that caused it to ignite on impact. Due to the fires caused by this design error, 53 deaths and many more injuries occurred.

You might, of course, argue that an isolated anecdote such as this doesn’t provide much evidence that goal setting can carry detrimental outcomes. Nevertheless, there is academic research that suggests that, under certain conditions, goals can indeed carry harmful side effects.² Here, I’ll consider just three lessons that I’ve taken from the research.

Goals should not be too specific