Performance playbook / 01
Set the goal.
Then make it believable.
Specific, difficult goals can lift performance. Vague ambition mostly creates meetings. Use three levels, keep the maths honest and give people enough feedback to adjust.
Test your goal01 / Why goals work
Focus · effort · persistence · strategyA target tells effort where to go.
Goal-setting research has produced a remarkably durable finding: specific and challenging goals tend to outperform vague instructions such as “do your best”. Goals direct attention, increase effort, extend persistence and can push people to find a better way of working.
A 2011 meta-analysis looked at 49 effect sizes from 739 groups involving 2,954 people. Specific easy goals had a small effect compared with non-specific goals. Moderate goals had a medium effect. Specific difficult goals had a large effect.
Base / Stretch / Aspirational
Three goals.
Three different jobs.
Base
The result you can deliver under normal conditions. A base goal creates clarity and protects credibility. It rarely changes the game by itself.
- Research match
- Specific, easy goal
- Effect size
- d = 0.23
- Research interval
- 95% CI 0.01–0.45
Stretch
The operating target. It should force better choices, more focus and a different use of time while remaining believable to the people doing the work.
- Research match
- Specific, moderately difficult goal
- Effect size
- d = 0.53
- Research interval
- 95% CI 0.25–0.81
Aspirational
The direction that may require a new method, product or capability. Keep it visible. Build credible steps beneath it. An impossible target with a bonus attached is mainly an invitation to improvise the numbers.
- Research match
- Specific, difficult goal
- Effect size
- d = 0.80
- Research interval
- 95% CI 0.45–1.15
02 / Test your goal
Give the ambition some numbers.
Cohen's d only becomes useful in your world when you know the normal variation in your metric. Enter both numbers and choose a goal level.
03 / Cohen's d
The “d” is not a percentage.
d = (goal-group average − comparison-group average) ÷ pooled standard deviation
A d of 0.53 means the goal group performed 0.53 standard deviations above the comparison group on average. It does not mean performance rose by 53%.
Suppose a team averages 100 units and normal performance varies by 15 units. A d of 0.53 translates to 7.95 units: 0.53 × 15. The illustrative average becomes 107.95. Change the variation and the answer changes too.
Under a normal-distribution picture, d values of 0.23, 0.53 and 0.80 move the average from the 50th percentile to roughly the 59th, 70th and 79th percentile. That comparison makes the size easier to see.
04 / Before the launch
A harder goal needs better conditions.
Difficulty helps until ability reaches its limit or commitment collapses. For unfamiliar or complex work, start with a learning goal: run interviews, test assumptions, build the skill. Performance can follow.
- 01
Specific
One result, one unit, one deadline. ‘Improve sales’ gives everybody room to hear a different instruction.
- 02
Difficult
The target should demand attention and effort. Easy goals help a little. Moderately difficult and difficult goals helped more in the group-performance research.
- 03
Accepted
Commitment matters. A number imposed on people who do not believe it has already started to fail.
- 04
Supported
Ability, time and resources set the ceiling. A bigger number does not manufacture capability.
- 05
Visible
People need feedback while they can still change course. A verdict after the deadline is an autopsy.
05 / Put it to work