8 Goals without guardrails
Did the previous chapters make you excited about goals and OKRs? Now, it’s worth pausing here, because while goal setting can be powerful, it’s not without risks. In fact, they can backfire pretty badly if used carelessly. The right goals can become waves you surf on, but there are also some dark undercurrents you need to be aware of.
In a landmark paper, ‘Goals Gone Wild’, Lisa Ordóñez and her colleagues show that poorly designed goals can do more harm than good. Aggressive goal setting, left unchecked, can cause all sorts of collateral damage – narrow focus, excessive risk-taking, internal competition, even outright cheating.1
You might have heard about this classic example that’s widely cited, even if it’s historically ...
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