Page 246 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

230 enhancing performance through goal-setting and feedback interventions
INTRODUCTION

The primary focus of this chapter is on the implementation of goal-setting and feedback
systems that aim for performance improvement. Although goal setting and feedback
are very powerful motivational interventions (see, for example, Locke & Latham, 1990;
Pritchard, 1995; Van Tuijl, Kleingeld, Schmidt, Kleinbeck, Pritchard, & Algera, 1997),
installing feedback and goal-setting systems in practice turns out to be rather difficult.
At least two important differences between studies on goal setting and feedback and the
actual implementation should be mentioned.
First, actual implementation means that the goal-setting and feedback system is to be
there for a long time. This implies a quite different perspective for the organisation than
the situation of a field study in which the aim is to gather data to prove that goal-setting
and feedback can be effective in practice. The main difference is that the goal-setting
and feedback system has to be adopted by the organisation. One of the consequences
is that it will have to fit with other organisational control systems, for example, reward
systems (see, for example, Schmidt & Kleinbeck, 1997). Further, installing goal-setting
and feedback systems can change the power relations in the organisation. For example,
providing performance feedback directly to individual workers instead of to their boss
could change the balance of power.
Second, actual implementation often means that a much greater part of the organisation
will be involved than in a study. Field studies are mostly restricted to a single unit or
department within an organisation. Locke and Latham (1990) present 395 goal-setting
and/or feedback studies of which 156 are field studies. In general in these field studies
the interventions are focused on rather narrowly defined behaviour domains. Mostly,
these studies relate to one dimension of a task. In actual practice tasks are more complex
and often multi-dimensional.
Inthischapterwewilldiscusstheimplementationofgoal-settingandfeedbacksystems
along the lines of the various phases that can be distinguished in the implementation
process. In addition to describing the pitfalls in each stage of implementation, the focus
will be on two themes. First, the problem of adoption of the goal-setting and feedback
system will be covered. The second theme elaborates on the question of how to handle
feedback data from the perspective of improving performance by developing better task
strategies, i.e. learning.

PHASES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS

The success of implementing goal-setting and feedback systems in practice is dependent
on many factors. In each stage of the implementation process different factors can be
more or less important. Actual implementations of goal-setting and feedback systems
in practice have not too often been published, also because not too many well-described
systematic approaches exist. An exception to this rule probably is the Productivity
Measurement and Enhancement System (ProMES), as developed by Pritchard and others
(see, for example, Pritchard, 1990, 1995; Van Tuijl et al., 1997; Algera & Kleinbeck,
1997; Schmidt & Kleinbeck, 1997). This system consists of four well-defined develop-
ment steps and has been evaluated in a number of studies in many different countries.
Although in most cases ProMES has been developed for work teams it has also been