Question

As a manager, what will you need to know about goal-setting theory as a motivation tool?

Answer 1

a. Goal setting theory refers to setting a specific goals for the team which acts as an tool for motivating the employees, so that the achievement can be encouraged.

b. To make the goal setting theory effective, manager must set clear goals which are measurable and specific, some level of difficulty must be set so that it acts as an motivator to the team and make them committed to achieve those goals.

c. Frequent performance analysis must be done while giving employees feedback and how they can improve their performance so that the better task performance can be achieved.

d. Apart from setting challenging goals manager must ensure the goals are realistic, like for example sales manager can set goal for each executive to close 10 sales deal within a week which is an realistic goal, while asking them to close 100 deals within a week is impossible to achieve as long as the executive is top performing employee. Hence in this case setting realistic goal can work as motivating tool while setting unrealistic goals can demotivate employees.