You've heard it all before: Set goals, set goals, set goals.
People who set goals are more focused, accomplish more, and earn more money than those who don't set goals. Goals keep you motivated. Goals provide the underlying meaning for your efforts.

Most people would agree that when it comes to promoting action and performance, setting goals is the drug of choice. But like so many drugs, there can be side effects.

Goal setting advocates suggest that goals should be specific, measurable, time-bound, and require the individual to stretch beyond current performance levels. While these characteristics can produce positive results, they can promote undesirable results, as well.

An Alternative View
Goals can be too specific and too narrowly focused. With too narrow a focus, people can be blind to other issues that appear to be unrelated to the goal and may also cause people to ignore other dimensions of performance that are not specified by the goal. If, for instance, there is a specific goal to develop a certain number of new accounts in a particular territory, other important objectives, like servicing existing customers, may suffer.

Because goals indicate to the individual what behavior is valued and appropriate, sales managers must consider the broader results of their directives. Establishing goals that are too narrowly focused can cause the individual to focus on short-term gains and lose sight of potentially destructive long-term impacts on the company.

Having too many goals can also cause problems. When there are multiple goals, people are inclined to focus on a few, perhaps only one. Goals that are easier to achieve and measure are given more attention than other goals.

Establishing an inappropriate timeline for accomplishment can also cause problems. Goals that emphasize immediate performance (e.g., a monthly quota) may cause people to engage in short-term behavior at the expense of long-term growth. Rather than view goals as a platform for performance, people see goals as a ceiling. Once the goal is achieved, they can relax. David Sandler called this phenomenon the "make a big hit; take a vacation" syndrome. For example, a salesperson meets his monthly sales quota in week three of the month. Rather than begin working on the next month's quota, he eases off for a week and "works" on his golf game.

"Stretch" goals are supposed to inspire effort, commitment, and new levels of performance. What happens if they are too challenging? Overly challenging goals can encourage people to adopt riskier strategies - take bigger gambles - than they would with less challenging goals. Putting all your eggs in one basket - pursuing (and betting it all on) an A-level account rather than pursuing two or three B- or C-level accounts - is one example. Overly challenging goals can also cause people to look for and take short cuts, which ultimately come back to haunt them later. They take a "just get the job done" approach and sacrifice quality for the sake of completion.

Overly challenging goals can also promote inappropriate, even unethical, behavior. Professional services providers have been known to bill clients for time they did not work in order to meet the firm's challenging "billable hours" goal. Sales executives have offered concessions in order to close sales and meet challenging revenue goals (and collect hefty bonuses) at the expense of profit and long-term corporate health.

Stretch goals can inhibit creativity and learning. When an individual is faced with a particularly challenging goal, he is less likely to look for and try alternative methods of accomplishment. To do so is too risky when so much is at stake. The individual is deprived of the opportunity to learn new ways to perform tasks more effectively or efficiently.

Goals may hinder cooperation. Organizations that rely heavily on goal setting may create an environment that promotes competition where individuals are focused first and foremost on their goals. Such an environment erodes the foundation of communication and cooperation that holds organizations together -- ultimately lowering overall company performance.

Goals can harm motivation. While goal setting (and the rewards attached to the accomplishment of the goals) can increase external motivation, it can harm internal motivation -- engaging in a task for its own sake or the sense of accomplishment felt when it is completed. The more sales managers emphasize goals as a way to motivate salespeople, the less those salespeople will be motivated by the intrinsic value of the job itself.

A New View
Goals can be a positive instrument for performance and growth in your organization. Before implementing a goal program, consider the follow questions:

Are the goals too numerous? Will they cause people to feel overwhelmed and choose the path of least resistance?

Will the constant stream of goals dampen internal motivation? Are the goals too narrowly focused? Will they cause people to miss peripheral issues that are critical to overall success?

Are the goals too challenging? Will they cause people to make trade-offs -- quantity for quality? Will they encourage risky or unethical behavior?

Is the time frame for accomplishment appropriate? Or, will people feel the need to trade short-term results for long-term benefits?

Goal setting can be a powerful pill, but you must consider the side effects before prescribing,

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