Good information skills are essential for successful professionals.
Early in your career you must successfully study and digest a huge volume of information, simply to become effective. As you become increasingly successful, you will need to digest huge numbers of documents, data and reports just to do your job, as well as assimilating all the information you need to keep up-to-date in your field.
The articles on reading help you to increase your reading speed and become highly selective in what you read. The item on review techniques helps you to keep information fresh in your mind. The article on note-taking gives you a powerful tool for recording useful information.
Enjoy the articles!
Introduction to Information and Study Skills
Effective Note-Taking with Mind Maps
SQ3R - Increasing your retention of written information
Speed Reading - Substantially increase your reading speed
Reading Strategies - Reading efficiently by reading intelligently
Review Techniques - Keeping information fresh in your mind
Learning Styles - Learn in a way that suits you
The Conscious Competence Ladder - Making learning a happier experience
Introduction
The techniques in this section help you to manage information better. By using them you will be able to improve:
Your reading skills, so that you can find the information you need quickly and easily
The way you make notes, so that they become clear and easy to understand, and quick to review
Your review techniques, so that you can keep information fresh in your mind.
These techniques will help you to assimilate information quickly. This may involve keeping yourself up-to-date on events within your field, absorbing information within reports or learning specialist information needed to complete a project.
These are also very useful tools for mastering course material where you are studying for exams.
Techniques discussed are:
How to take notes effectively - Mind Maps
Fully absorbing written information - SQ3R
Speed Reading
Reading faster by thinking what to read - Reading Strategies
Keeping information fresh in your mind - Review Techniques
Learn in a way that suits you - Learning Styles
The Conscious Competence Ladder - Making learning a happier experience
Mind Maps are powerful tools for recording and organizing information. They do this in a format that is easy to review. Once you understand and start using Mind Maps, you will never again want to take notes using conventional techniques.
The next three techniques (SQ3R, Speed Reading and use of Reading Strategies) help you to assimilate and understand written information quickly and efficiently.
The section on Review Techniques will help you to keep information that you have already learned alive in your mind.
Finally, the article on Learning Styles will not only help you develop the ways in which you can learn, but you'll be able to tailor what you do so that others can learn from you more effectively.
"Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I can move the Earth."
- Archimedes
To lift a heavy object, you have a choice: use leverage or not. You can try to lift the object directly – risking injury – or you can use a lever, such as a jack or a long plank of wood, to transfer some of the weight, and then lift the object that way.
Which approach is wiser? Will you succeed without using leverage? Maybe. But you can lift so much more with leverage, and do it so much more easily!
So what has this got to do with your life and career?
The answer is "a lot". By applying the concept of leverage to business and career success, you can, with a little thought, accomplish very much more than you can without it. Without leverage, you may work very hard, but your rewards are limited by the hours you put in. With leverage, you can break this connection and, in time, achieve very much more.
Note: We're not referring to financial leverage here. Financial leverage, using "other people's money" to grow your business, can be a successful growth strategy. However, it's outside the scope of this article.
Levers of Success
So how can you apply leverage to your career? And how can you achieve much more, while – if you choose to – reducing the number of hours that you work?
To do this, you'll need to learn how to use the leverage of:-
Time (yours and that of other people).
Resources.
Knowledge and education.
Technology.
Time Leverage
Using the leverage of time is the most fundamental strategy for success. There are only so many hours in a day that you can work. If you use only your own time, you can achieve only so much. If you leverage other people's time, you can increase productivity to an extraordinary extent.
To leverage YOUR OWN time.
Practice effective time management. Eliminate unnecessary activities, and focus your effort on the things that really matter.
As part of this, learn how to prioritize, so that you focus your energy on the activities that give the greatest return for the time invested.
Use goal setting to think about what matters to you in the long term, set clear targets, and motivate yourself to achieve those targets.
To leverage other people's time.
Learn how to delegate work to other people.
Train and empower others.
Bring in experts and consultants to cover skill or knowledge gaps.
Outsource non-core tasks to people with the experience to do them more efficiently.
Providing that you do things properly, the time and money that you invest in leveraging other people's time is usually well spent. Remember, though, that you'll almost always have to "pay" up front in some way in order to reap the longer-term benefits of using leverage.
Tip 1: This is why delegation is such an important skill: If you can't delegate effectively, you can never expand your productivity beyond the work that you can personally deliver. This means that your career will quickly stall, and while you may be appreciated for your hard work, you'll never be truly successful. Use these skill-builder resources to learn to delegate: Delegation, Successful Delegation,The Delegation Dilemma, and Bite-Sized Training: Delegation.
It's also one of the reasons that micromanagement is such a vice: You spend so much time managing a few people that you constrain the amount of leverage you can exert. See our Avoiding Micromanagement article for more on this.
Tip 2: As you learn to use the leverage these things give you, you'll find that using them involves some up-front costs, such as the investment of time and resources you'll need to make to get someone started with a job that you'd otherwise need to do.
While it's natural to want to conserve these resources ("I don't have time to train him - it's got to be done by next Tuesday!"), if you don't make these investments, you'll lock yourself into the old way of doing things - and this will limit you to achieving only those things that you can do by yourself.
Resource Leverage
You can also exert leverage by getting the most from your assets, and taking full advantage of your personal strengths.
You have a wide range of skills, talents, experiences, thoughts, and ideas. These can, and should, be used in the best combination. What relevant skills and strengths do you have that others don't? How can you use these to best effect, and how can you improve them so that they're truly remarkable? What relevant assets do you have that others don't? Can you use these to create leverage? Do you have connections that others don't have? Or financial resources? Or some other asset that you can use to greater effect?
A good way of thinking about this is to conduct a personal SWOT analysis, focusing on identifying strengths and assets, and expanding from these to identify the opportunities they give you. (An advantage of SWOT is that it also helps you spot critical weaknesses that need to be covered.)
Tip: As you do this, think about how you can help others with your strengths and resources. Remember, when you can give to others, the more you're likely to get in return. (Just make sure that you're clear as to how you will be rewarded!)
Knowledge and Education Leverage
Another significant lever of success is applied knowledge. Combined with education and action, this can generate tremendous leverage.
Learning by experience is slow and painful. If you can find more formal ways of learning, you'll progress much more quickly. What's more, if you select a good course, you'll have a solid foundation to your knowledge, and one that doesn't have high-risk gaps. This is why people working in life-or-death areas (such as architects, airline pilots, medical doctors and suchlike) need long and thorough training. After all, would you want to be operated on by an unqualified surgeon?
While few of us operate in quite such immediately critical areas, by determining what you need to know, and then acquiring that knowledge, you can avoid many years of slow, painful trial and error learning.
In the same way, it's inefficient if many people in an organization have to learn how to do their work by trial and error. A much better way is for organizations to capture the knowledge gained by the first few in some way and pass it on to others. This is the core of the "knowledge management" concept. Premium Members of the Career Excellence Club can hear more about this in our Book Insight on The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knowledge Management.
The keys to successfully leveraging knowledge and education are: firstly, knowing what you need to learn; secondly knowing to what level you need to learn it; thirdly, being very focused and selective in your choices; and fourthly, in taking the time to earn the qualifications you need.
Even then, having more education or more knowledge isn't necessarily a point of leverage. These become advantages only when they can be directly applied to your career goals and aspirations--and when they're used actively and intelligently to do something useful.
By hiring, consulting with, and outsourcing to other people, you gain the leverage of their knowledge and education as well as their resources. This only works if you choose the right people - the wrong ones can slow you and drag you down. Don't let this happen!
Technology Leverage
Finding technology leverage is all about thinking about how you work, and using technology to automate as much of this as you can.
At a simple level, you might find that all you need to keep you in touch with home and work is a laptop computer. Alternatively, a personal digital assistant (PDA) can help you maintain a single, convenient, properly-backed-up time management system. Cell phones that access email and browse the web are handy tools for making the best of your downtime during working hours or while traveling.
If you're a slow typist, voice recognition software can help you dictate documents and save time. Tools like Google Desktop Search can help you manage and find documents in such a way that you no longer need to file digital documents. And Google itself provides a great, quick way of finding relevant information online.
At a more sophisticated level, you may find that you can use simple desktop databases like Microsoft Access to automate simple work processes. If you do a lot of routine data processing (for example, if you run many similar projects) you can find that this saves you a great deal of time. More than this, you only need to set up a process once with a tool like this - afterwards the process will be executed the same way each time, by whomever initiates the process (this reduces training, meaning that new team members can become productive much more quickly, meaning that you can scale your operations – and your success – more quickly.)
Businesses can choose from a wide array of software solutions. Some of these can automate or simplify tasks that are otherwise very time-consuming. Customer relationship management (CRM) databases can bring tremendous benefits for sales and customer service organizations, as can point-of-sale (PoS) inventory systems for organizations that need to track and manage inventory. Websites and web-based catalogs can give clients easy access to up-to-date product information, and help them place orders simply and easily. And blogs and email-based newsletters help people stay in contact with thousands of people quickly and easily. All of these use technology to provide tremendous leverage.
Key Points
Using leverage is the art and science of getting much more done with the same, or less, effort. At a simple level, this can free up your time to concentrate on things with the highest priority. At a more sophisticated level, it helps you achieve at a much higher level.
When you invest time and resources to leverage technology - as well as to leverage time, resources, and knowledge (both your own, and that of other people) - you have a recipe for unprecedented success. Use what you and others have to your advantage, and see how far it will take you.
Apply This to Your Life:
Complete a personal SWOT analysis. This will help give you a real sense of what you're good at and what activities might benefit from some outside help. From there, you can start to build a leveraging strategy to maximize your productivity and performance.
Look for a mentor who understands and uses leverage, and learn from his or her experiences. This is an example of using leverage to learn more about leveraging - so that exponential factor kicks in again.
Increase your personal expectations. Take a look at your current goals, and ask yourself how much further you could push those goals by using leverage on a consistent basis. You may far surpass your pre-leverage goals once you commit to "working smart."
Surround yourself with a network of great people who have skills, knowledge, and expertise that you don't possess. Look for opportunities to create synergy, and leverage the talents of everyone involved. When you work together, you can accomplish so much more than going it alone.
Let's take an example. Have you ever seen a hassled mom trying to get her young daughter to leave whatever she is doing and do something else? It's a common enough sight: Young children can get so wrapped up in whatever they're doing that it takes a lot of persuasion to get them to switch their attention.
This ability to focus totally on one thing comes naturally to young children, but it's one of the biggest challenges that most of the rest of us face. We struggle to concentrate and, because of this, fail to get on with the work we're doing.
Some people, though, seem able to focus intensely on what they're doing, and perform exceptionally well as a result. Modern psychologists refer to this state of absolute absorption or concentration in what we are doing, as being "in flow."
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who first described the concept, suggests that this state of being able to achieve total focus applies to almost every field of activity. According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow involves "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost". So how do we enter this "ecstatic" state?
Creating the Right Environment
Flow is easiest to achieve when:
You have enough pressure on you to stay engaged, but not so much that it's harming your performance.
You believe that your skills are good enough to perform well.
You have distraction under control.
You are attending to the task in hand, rather than analyzing and critiquing your performance.
You are relaxed and alert.
You are thinking positively, and have eliminated all negative thoughts.
Some of these are hard to achieve in a busy office environment. Your phone rings, your e-mail beeps to indicate that a new message has arrived, and co-workers pop by to ask you questions. At the same time you can't stop thinking about a whole range of personal and work issues that are causing you stress, not least of which is the sheer quantity of work which is piling up.
So if you're to have a good chance of getting into flow, you need to sort out all of these distractions first. Here are some practical things you can do:
Get comfortable, and eliminate distraction from your environment. Rearrange your working environment so that you eliminate as many distractions as possible. Change the orientation of your desk, so that people passing don't distract you. Use plants and screens to damp noise. Adjust furniture so that it's comfortable. If untidiness distracts you, tidy up. Make sure the temperature is comfortable, and that your work area is well lit.
Keep interruptions at bay. Put up the "Do not disturb" sign, switch off your cell phone, close your email reader and web browser, and do anything. anything that will block the most common things that distract you from work. You'll be surprised at how much you can get done in just one hour of uninterrupted work, which may be the equivalent of plodding on for several hours if you're handling interruptions at the same time. For more on this, read our article on managing interruptions.
Manage your stress. Identify the sources of stress you experience with a Stress Diary, and then work to reduce or eliminate the greatest stressors. One of the most common sources of stress at work is feeling that you have too much to do. See our section on time management to find out how to deal with this. And if you're under so much pressure to perform that this is distracting you, use relaxation imagery to calm yourself down.
Keep a To-Do List or Action Program. Empty your mind of those distracting things you have to do by writing them down in a to-do list or action program. You'll be amazed how much this can clear your mind! Do the same for worries - write them down and schedule a time to deal with them. And don't try to multi-task: Just concentrate on doing one thing well.
Think positively. It's very hard to concentrate if you have negative thoughts swirling around your mind. What's more, the negativity they cause undermines the way we deal with work, with people and with issues, often making things more difficult. So the final step in preparing to concentrate is to stop thinking negatively and start thinking positively.
Successful athletes commonly use relaxation and positive thinking techniques as they face the challenge of competition. They deal with their feelings of nervousness with relaxation techniques, and by reminding themselves that they have the skills needed to succeed. And when they are out there running, jumping, or throwing, they concentrate on what they're doing, rather than on the distractions around them.
Getting Into the Flow
With all of that in place, you can start to practice your concentration skills. Try to focus on one task at a time to the exclusion of others, as far as you can.
Before you know it, you will be in flow. You'll be so involved in any activity you undertake that nothing else seems to matter. Not only will your productivity increase, you'll find that your work is more rewarding. Flow is productive, flow is fun, and flow is essential for real success!
Key Points:
When you achieve a state of flow, you're able to achieve more because all of your thoughts and energy are focused on the task in hand. To get into a state of flow, you need to eliminate interruptions and distractions from your environment.
More than this, you need to empty your mind of worries, anxieties, negative thinking, and all those little "mental notes" that flit in and out of our consciousness. This sounds hard, but in reality is quite easy if you take the time to get into the right habits.
Apply This to Your Life:
Look for ways in which you could improve your work environment so that you can get into the flow more efficiently and more often. If you work in an open-plan office, consider using a meeting or rest area when you need to concentrate. Alternatively, use headphones to block out the noise when you're working at your terminal.
Be disciplined about shutting down your web browser, and only checking your e-mail once you have completed a task.
Follow our advice, set up an effective time management system, and get on top of the stressful thoughts buzzing around your mind. You'll be amazed by how much better you can concentrate if you get everything down on paper!
If you get stuck with a certain part of your task, don't succumb to self-distraction and hurry off to get a cup of coffee. Instead, remind yourself that you have the skills to break through the problem, and maintain your focus on finding a solution.
If your goal is to become an account executive within the next five years, where do you start your planning process? Or if your team needs to redesign the company's organizational structure, where do you begin?
In planning, most of us would usually start building our plan from start to finish. What do you have to do first, second, third, and so on? What milestones do you have to reach before you can continue on with the next step in the plan? By what date does each step need to be completed?
This is a solid form of Personal Goal Setting that works very well. When combined with the Golden Rules of Goal Setting, you have a motivating formula that can help you actively move yourself forward.
A New Approach
However, there's another, simple but lesser-used method of goal setting that can be equally as powerful. It can show you other ways to achieve the same result, and it can help you deal with the necessary unknowns of goal setting that can so often cause you to give up on your plan entirely.
It's called backward planning, backward goal-setting, or backward design, and it's used quite often in education and training. The idea is to start with your ultimate objective, your end goal, and then work backward from there to develop your plan. By starting at the end and looking back, you can mentally prepare yourself for success, map out the specific milestones you need to reach, and identify where in your plan you have to be particularly energetic or creative to achieve the desired results.
It's much like a good presentation, when the presenter tells you where he's headed right at the beginning. Then, as the presentation unfolds, it's easy for you to follow the concepts and think critically about what's being said. If you have to figure out the main points as they come, your energy is often used up by just trying to keep up.
The Backward Planning Process
Here's how it works:
Write down your ultimate goal. What specifically do you want to achieve, and by what date?
Example: "By January 1, 2013, I will be the key accounts director for Crunchy Chips International."
Then ask yourself what milestone you need to accomplish just before that, in order to achieve your ultimate goal. What specifically do you have to do, and by when, so that you're in a position to reach your final objective?
Example: "By September 30, 2011, I will successfully complete the executive training program offered by Crunchy Chips International."
Then work backward some more. What do you need to complete before that second-to-last goal?
Example: "By March 1, 2011, I will submit my application for the executive training program, outlining my successes as a key accounts manager, and I will be accepted into the program."
Work back again. What do you need to do to make sure the previous goal is reached?
Example: "By January 1, 2011, I will complete my second year as a key accounts manager with Crunchy Chips International, and I will earn the prestigious Key Accounts Manager of the Year award."
Continue to work back, in the same way, until you identify the very first milestone that you need to accomplish.
Example: "By January 1, 2010, I will complete my first year as a key accounts manager with Crunchy Chips International, and I will be rewarded for my performance by gaining responsibility for clients purchasing over $10 million per year."
"By January 1, 2009, I will be promoted to key accounts manager with Crunchy Chips International, and I will have responsibility for clients purchasing over $1 million per quarter."
When you read a backward plan, it doesn't look much different from a traditional forward plan. However, creating a backward plan is VERY different. You need to force yourself to think from a completely new perspective, to help you see things that you might miss if you use a traditional chronological process.
This can also help you avoid spending time on unnecessary or unproductive activities along the way. Furthermore, it highlights points of tension within the plan, showing where you'll need to be particularly creative to make the next step successfully.
Key Points
On the surface, backward planning doesn't seem much different from traditional goal-setting processes. You start with a basic vision, and then you ask yourself what needs to be done to achieve that vision. You can read your plan from the beginning to the end, or from the end back to the beginning.
Backward planning, however, is more than reversing the direction of your traditional plan. It's about adopting a different perspective and, perhaps, identifying different milestones as a result. It's a great supplement to traditional planning, and it gives you a much fuller appreciation for what it may take to achieve success. After all, the more alternatives you have, the better your final plan will likely be.
Have you thought about what you want to be doing in five years' time?... Are you clear about what your main objective at work is at the moment?... Do you know what you want to have achieved by the end of today?
If you want to succeed, you need to set goals. Without goals you lack focus and direction. Goal setting not only allows you to take control of your life's direction; it also provides you a benchmark for determining whether you are actually succeeding. Think about it: Having a million dollars in the bank is only proof of success if one of your goals is to amass riches. If your goal is to practice acts of charity, then keeping the money for yourself is suddenly contrary to how you would define success.
To accomplish your goals, however, you need to know how to set them. You can't simply say, "I want." and expect it to happen. Goal setting is a process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve, and ends with a lot of hard work to actually do it. In between there are some very well defined steps that transcend the specifics of each goal. Knowing these steps will allow you to formulate goals that you can accomplish.
Here are our Five Golden Rules of Goal Setting:
The Five Golden Rules
Rule #1: Set Goals that Motivate You When you set goals for yourself, it is important that they motivate you: This means making sure it is something that's important to you and there is value in achieving it. If you have little interest in the outcome, or it is irrelevant given the larger picture, then the chances of you putting in the work to make it happen are slim. Motivation is key to achieving goals.
Set goals that relate to the high priorities in your life. Without this type of focus you can end up with far too many goals, leaving you too little time to devote to each one. Goal achievement requires commitment, so to maximize the likelihood of success, you need to feel a sense of urgency and have an "I must do this" attitude. When you don't have this "must do" factor, you risk putting off what you need to do to make the goal a reality. This in turn leaves you feeling disappointed and frustrated with yourself, both of which are de-motivating. And you can end up in a very destructive "I can't do anything or be successful at anything" frame of mind.
Tip: To make sure your goal is motivating, write down why it's valuable and important to you. Ask yourself, "If I were to share my goal with others, how would I tell them to convince them it was a worthwhile goal?" You can use this motivating value statement to help you if you start to doubt yourself or lose confidence in your ability to actually make it happen.
Rule #2: Set SMART Goals You have probably heard of "SMART goals" already. But do you always apply the rule? The simple fact is that for any goal to be achieved it must be designed to be SMART. There are many variations on what SMART stands for, but the essence is this - Goals should be:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time Bound
Set Specific Goals You goal must be clear and well defined. Vague or generalized goals are not achievable because they don't provide sufficient direction. Remember, you need goals to show you the way. How useful would a map of the United States be if there were only state borders marked on it and you were trying to get from Miami to Los Angeles? Do you even know which state you are starting from let alone which one you're headed to? Make it as easy as you can to get where you want to go by defining precisely where it is you want to end up.
Set Measurable Goals Include precise amounts, dates, etc in your goals so you can measure your degree of success. If your goal is simply defined as "To reduce expenses" how will you know when you are successful? In one month's time if you have a 1% reduction or in two year's time when you have a 10% reduction? Without a way to measure your success you miss out on the celebration that comes with knowing you actually achieved something.
Set Attainable Goals Make sure that it's possible to achieve the goals you set. If you set a goal that you have no hope of achieving you will only demoralize yourself and erode your confidence.
However, resist the urge to set goals that are too easy. Accomplishing a goal that you didn't have to work very hard for can be an anticlimax at best, and can also make you fear setting future goals that carry a risk of non-achievement. By setting realistic yet challenging goals you hit the balance you need. These are the types of goals that require you to "raise the bar" and they bring the greatest personal satisfaction.
Set Relevant Goals
Goals should be relevant to the direction you want your life and career to take. By keeping goals aligned with this, you'll develop the focus you need to get ahead and do what you want. Set widely scattered and inconsistent goals, and you'll fritter your time - and your life - away.
Set Time-Bound Goals You goals must have a deadline. This again, is so that you know when to celebrate your success. When you are working on a deadline, your sense of urgency increases and achievement will come that much quicker.
Rule #3: Set Goals in Writing The physical act of writing down a goal makes it real and tangible. You have no excuse for forgetting about it. As you write, use the word "will" instead of "would like to" or "might". For example, "I will reduce my operating expenses by 10% this year." Not, "I would like to reduce my operating expenses by 10% this year." The first goal statement has power and you can "see" yourself reducing expenses, the second lacks passion and gives you an out if you get sidetracked.
Tip 1: Frame your goal statement positively. If you want to improve your retention rates say, "I will hold on to all existing employees for the next quarter" rather than "I will reduce employee turnover." The first one is motivating; the second one still has a get-out clause "allowing" you to succeed even if some employees leave.
Tip 2:
If you use a To Do List, make yourself a To Do List template that has your goals at the top of it. If you use an Action Program.
Post your goals in visible places to remind yourself everyday of what it is you intend to do. Put them on your walls, desk, computer monitor, bathroom mirror or refrigerator as a constant reminder. You can even post them in the Mind Tools Career Excellence Club forum and share them with other members, for added motivation.
Rule #4: Make an Action Plan This step is often missed in the process of goal setting. You get so focused on the outcome that you forget to plan all of the steps that are needed along the way. By writing out the individual steps, and then crossing each one off as you complete it, you'll realize that you are making progress towards your ultimate goal. This is especially important if your goal is big and demanding, or long-term. Read our article on Action Plans for more on how to do this.
Rule #5: Stick With It! Remember, goal setting is an ongoing activity not just a means to an end. Build in reminders to keep you on track and remember to review your goals continuously. Your end destination may remain quite similar over the long term but the action plan you set for yourself along the way can change significantly. Make sure the relevance, value, and necessity remain high.
Key Points
Goal setting is much more than simply saying you want something to happen. Unless you clearly define exactly what you want and understand why you want it the first place, your odds of success are considerably reduced. By following the Five Golden Rules of Goal Setting you can set goals with confidence and enjoy the satisfaction that comes along with knowing you achieved what you set out to do. What will you decide to accomplish today?
Goal setting is a powerful way of motivating people. The value of goal setting is so well recognized that entire management systems, like Management by Objectives, have goal setting basics incorporated within them.
In fact, goal setting theory is generally accepted as among the most valid and useful motivation theories in industrial and organizational psychology, human resource management, and organizational behavior.
Many of us have learned - from bosses, seminars, and business articles - to set SMART goals. It seems natural to assume that by setting a goal that's Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound, we will be well on our way to accomplishing it.
But is this really the best way of setting goals?
To answer this, we look to Dr Edwin Locke's pioneering research on goal setting and motivation in the late 1960s. In his 1968 article "Toward a Theory of Task Motivation and Incentives," he stated that employees were motivated by clear goals and appropriate feedback. Locke went on to say that working toward a goal provided a major source of motivation to actually reach the goal - which, in turn, improved performance.
This information does not seem revolutionary to most of us some 40 years later. This shows the impact his theory has had on professional and personal performance.
In this article, we look at what Locke had to say about goal setting, and how we can apply his theory to our own performance goals.
Goal Setting Theory
Locke's research showed that there was a relationship between how difficult and specific a goal was and people's performance of a task. He found that specific and difficult goals led to better task performance than vague or easy goals.
Telling someone to "Try hard" or "Do your best" is less effective than "Try to get more than 80% correct" or "Concentrate on beating your best time." Likewise, having a goal that's too easy is not a motivating force. Hard goals are more motivating than easy goals, because it's much more of an accomplishment to achieve something that you have to work for.
A few years after Locke published his article, another researcher, Dr Gary Latham, studied the effect of goal setting in the workplace. His results supported exactly what Locke had found, and the inseparable link between goal setting and workplace performance was formed.
In 1990, Locke and Latham published their seminal work, "A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance." In this book, they reinforced the need to set specific and difficult goals, and they outlined three other characteristics of successful goal setting.
Five Principles of Goal Setting
To motivate, goals must take into consideration the degree to which each of the following exists:
Clarity.
Challenge.
Commitment.
Feedback.
Task complexity.
Let's look at each of these in detail.
Clarity Clear goals are measurable, unambiguous, and behavioral. When a goal is clear and specific, with a definite time set for completion, there is less misunderstanding about what behaviors will be rewarded. You know what's expected, and you can use the specific result as a source of motivation. When a goal is vague - or when it's expressed as a general instruction, like "Take initiative" - it has limited motivational value.
To improve your or your team's performance, set clear goals that use specific and measurable standards. "Reduce job turnover by 15%" or "Respond to employee suggestions within 48 hours" are examples of clear goals.
When you use the SMART acronym to help you set goals, you ensure the clarity of the goal by making it Specific, Measurable and Time-bound.
Challenge One of the most important characteristics of goals is the level of challenge. People are often motivated by achievement, and they'll judge a goal based on the significance of the anticipated accomplishment. When you know that what you do will be well received, there's a natural motivation to do a good job.
Rewards typically increase for more difficult goals. If you believe you'll be well compensated or otherwise rewarded for achieving a challenging goal, that will boost your enthusiasm and your drive to get it done.
Setting SMART goals that are Relevant links closely to the rewards given for achieving challenging goals. Relevant goals will further the aims of your organization, and these are the kinds of goals that most employers will be happy to reward.
When setting goals, make each goal a challenge. If an assignment is easy and not viewed as very important - and if you or your employee doesn't expect the accomplishment to be significant - then the effort may not be impressive.
Note: It's important to strike an appropriate balance between a challenging goal and a realistic goal. Setting a goal that you'll fail to achieve is possibly more de-motivating than setting a goal that's too easy. The need for success and achievement is strong, therefore people are best motivated by challenging, but realistic, goals. Ensuring that goals are Achievable or Attainable is one of the elements of SMART.
Commitment Goals must be understood and agreed upon if they are to be effective. Employees are more likely to "buy into" a goal if they feel they were part of creating that goal. The notion of participative management rests on this idea of involving employees in setting goals and making decisions.
One version of SMART - for use when you are working with someone else to set their goals - has A and R stand for Agreed and Realistic instead of Attainable and Relevant. Agreed goals lead to commitment.
This doesn't mean that every goal has to be negotiated with and approved by employees. It does mean that goals should be consistent and in line with previous expectations and organizational concerns. As long as the employee believes the goal is consistent with the goals of the company, and believes the person assigning the goal is credible, then the commitment should be there.
Interestingly, goal commitment and difficulty often work together. The harder the goal, the more commitment is required. If you have an easy goal, you don't need a lot of motivation to get it done. When you're working on a difficult assignment, you will likely encounter challenges that require a deeper source of inspiration and incentive.
As you use goal setting in your workplace, make an appropriate effort to include people in their own goal setting. Encourage employees to develop their own goals, and keep them informed about what's happening elsewhere in the organization. This way, they can be sure that their goals are consistent with the overall vision and purpose that the company seeks.
Feedback In addition to selecting the right type of goal, an effective goal program must also include feedback. Feedback provides opportunities to clarify expectations, adjust goal difficulty, and gain recognition. It's important to provide benchmark opportunities or targets, so individuals can determine for themselves how they're doing.
These regular progress reports, which measure specific success along the way, are particularly important where it's going to take a long time to reach a goal. In these cases, break down the goals into smaller chunks, and link feedback to these intermediate milestones.
SMART goals are Measurable, and this ensures that clear feedback is possible.
With all your goal setting efforts, make sure that you build in time for providing formal feedback. Certainly, informal check-ins are important, and they provide a means of giving regular encouragement and recognition. However, taking the time to sit down and discuss goal performance is a necessary factor in long-term performance improvement. See our article on Delegation for more on this.
Task Complexity The last factor in goal setting theory introduces two more requirements for success. For goals or assignments that are highly complex, take special care to ensure that the work doesn't become too overwhelming.
People who work in complicated and demanding roles probably have a high level of motivation already. However, they can often push themselves too hard if measures aren't built into the goal expectations to account for the complexity of the task. It's therefore important to do the following:
Give the person sufficient time to meet the goal or improve performance.
Provide enough time for the person to practice or learn what is expected and required for success.
The whole point of goal setting is to facilitate success. Therefore, you want to make sure that the conditions surrounding the goals don't frustrate or inhibit people from accomplishing their objectives. This reinforces the "Attainable" part of SMART.
Key points:
Goal setting is something most of us recognize as necessary for our success.
By understanding goal setting theory, you can effectively apply the principles to goals that you or your team members set. Locke and Latham's research emphasizes the usefulness of SMART goal setting, and their theory continues to influence the way we set and measure performance today.
Use clear, challenging goals, and commit yourself to achieving them. Provide feedback on goal performance. Take into consideration the complexity of the task. If you follow these simple rules, your goal setting process will be much more successful and your overall performance will improve.
