Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior 10 e Hellriegel and Slocum

Chapter 6 - Motivating Individuals for High Performance

Unit6

1. Model of Goal Setting and Performance
   Goals are future outcomes (results) that individuals and groups desire and strive to achieve. Goal Setting is the process of specifying what the goals will be.
   1. Importance of Goal Setting
      Goals guide and direct behavior. Goals provide challenges and indicators against which team or person can judge performance. Goals justify performance of various tasks. Goals define the basis for Organization's design. Goals serve an organizing function. Goals reflect where employees and mangers alike consider important.
      Locke and Latham developed a model of individual goal settings and performance that we will now look at.
   2. challenge
      Two key attributes for goals:
      • Goal difficulty
        Goal needs to be challenging but not impossible
      • Goal Clarity
        It must be clear and specific or it is on no use to the person trying to seek them.
      
      One method used is Management by Objective which uses goals to define what the person needs to reach.
      Self-efficacy is important also. It is the belief that a person can perform at a certain level in a situation.
   3. Moderators
      Four factors that moderate the ability to meet the goals:
      
      • Ability
        The person must have the ability to do the task
      • Goal Commitment
        The individual's determination to reach a goal. Public stated goals are stronger than private ones, Ones set by person or by person with management input are more likely met than one imposed my management. Ones that have a useable reward also have greater chance of being met.
      • Feedback
        Person needs feedback on how they are doing on meeting goals.
      • Task Complexity
   4. Mediators
      
      • Direction of attention
        Steers person away from irrelevant activities
      • effort
        Greater the difficulty the more person will have to exert effort if willing to achieve.
      • persistence
        Desire to work on a task over the long term.
      • Task strategy
        How a person decides to do a task.
   5. Performance
      performance can be met when the previous three have been done. Sometimes due to problems on job, a code of ethics needs to be developed.
   6. Rewards
      Once a performance level has been reached rewards should be used. They can be external (vacations, bonuses), or internal (achievement feeling, pride). Different cultures look on the rewards differently so be careful with cross cultural management.
   7. Satisfaction
      This is not the organizations satisfaction, but the employee's. Due to circumstances, it may be necessary to compromise, especially with goals set to high.
   8. The Effect of Goal Setting on Motivation and Performance
      
      1. Encourages people to develop action plans to reach goals
      2. Focuses people's attention on the goal relevant actions
      3. Causing people to exert the effort necessary to achieve goals.
      4. spurirng people to persist in face of obstacles
   9. Limitations to Goal Setting
      Goal setting will not work if person lacks skills to meet goals. Complicated tasks that require large amounts of learning may take longer. Rewarding wrong behavior can lead to problems (even illegal activity).
   10. Organizational Use
       Satisfaction and commitment to organization result when challenges are met.


2. Reward Systems For High Performance
   Rewards, to be useful, should be:
   • Available 0 too small a reward is as good as no reward (think pay increase)
   • Timely - should be close to behavior it is trying to reinforce.
   • Performance Contingency - closely linked to performance
   • Durable - some rewards last longer than others, think autonomy v. pay increase
   • Equity - pay policies are equitable to all.
   • visibility - rewards must be visible to all.
   1. Gain-Sharing Programs
      Rewards people who reach specific goals but formula can be too complex
   2. Profit-Sharing Programs
      Rewards organizational performance but people might not see their impact on organization
   3. Skill-Based Pay
      Rewards people who acquire skills but cost can increase or employee can top out.
   4. Flexible Benefit Plans
      Benefits tailored to individual but higher cost to administer program.
   5. Organizational Use
      Management needs to look at trade offs discussed above.