Every four years I am captivated by the amazing performances of the World Cup soccer players. Add the famous GOOOOOOAL call by announcer Andres Cantor and it is “must see TV!”
Big goals also lead to high performance in the world of work. In Marc Effron’s soon to be released book, 8 Steps to High Performance:Focus on What You Can Change (Ignore the Rest), he highlights the science behind goal setting:
- Specific goals improve performance.
- Bigger goals are more motivating than smaller goals.
- Fewer goals lead to higher performance.
Based on this research he describes a four step process to set goals with your people to help them perform at the highest level.
- Align – individual goals need to directly contribute to what is most important to your institution’s success.
- Promise – limit individual goals to those important few that an individual is emotionally committed to and willing to “promise” to complete.
- Increase – individual goals need to focus on concrete improvement in performance.
- Frame – write the goals so they are clear, easy to understand and succinct.
Not everyone gets to score a goal in the World Cup but you can help all your people be star performers in their own way.
Todd Thorsgaard
Higher EDge 