Business Horizons (2017) 60, 345—352

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect
www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor

Combining performance, learning, and

behavioral goals to match job with person:
Three steps to enhance employee
performance with goal setting
Robert C. Ford a,b

a
University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Boulevard, Orlando, FL 32816, U.S.A.
b
Crummer Graduate School of Management, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32789,
U.S.A.

KEYWORDS Abstract While there have been many articles written on the advantages and
Goal setting; techniques of goal setting, there has been far less written to guide practicing
Management by managers on how to put this powerful motivational tool to work. This article offers
objectives; a three-step process that begins by identifying the combination of performance,
Learning goals; learning, and behavioral goals to best match the unique knowledge, skills, and
Performance goals; abilities of the employee to the task requirements of the job. Once this best-goal
Behavioral goals; combination has been determined, the manager’s letter, a managerial tool developed
Priming; by Peter Drucker, is presented as a well-accepted process for implementing a goal-
SMART goals setting strategy that emphasizes employee participation. The third step in the
implementation of a goal-setting strategy is to introduce subconscious primes that
can reinforce the value of setting performance, learning, and behavioral goals.
# 2016 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.

1. Strategic goal setting
‘‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought
to go from here?’’
‘‘That depends a good deal on where you want
to get to,’’ said the Cat.
‘‘I don’t much care where–—’’ said Alice.
E-mail address: rford@bus.ucf.edu
‘‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’’
said the Cat.
‘‘–—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’’ Alice added
as an explanation.
‘‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’’ said the Cat, ‘‘if
you only walk long enough.’’
This often-quoted excerpt from Alice in Wonderland
(Carroll, 1865), about how it makes no difference
what direction you go if you don’t much care where
you are going, is an apt introduction to the use and

0007-6813/$ — see front matter # 2016 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2016.12.001
346
value of goal setting in organizations. Since the
publication of the seminal work by Locke and
Latham (1990) on the importance of setting high
and specific but attainable goals in enhancing em-
ployee productivity, thousands of articles have been
written about this important motivational technique
(Latham, 2012; Locke & Latham, 2002). Today, there
is no question that this goal-setting work–—which is
parallel to, but separate from, the classic manage-
ment by objectives work of Peter Drucker (1954),
George Odiorne (1965), and others–—has made a
convincing case for the value of setting goals and
objectives for and with employees in organizations.
On the other hand, there is little value in setting
goals if the person with set goals does not know how
to perform the tasks. To reverse the aforementioned
Alice in Wonderland phrase, it does not matter if
you know exactly where you are going if you have no
idea of how to get there. And, to take this logic one
step further, it does not matter if you know exactly
where you are going and have the ability to get
there but are unwilling to put forth the effort to go
there–—either because you do not believe you can do
it or you do not want to. In other words, the large
body of research on goal setting points to the joint
influence of knowing what to do, having the ability
to do it, and believing that by expending effort on
the task the person can do it (Seijts & Latham,
2012). Thus, there are three types of goals that
managers can use to influence desired employee
outcomes: (1) performance goals, (2) learning goals,
and (3) behavioral goals (Latham & Seijts, 2016).
Performance goals are specific outcomes that
employees agree to accomplish. Learning goals
are specific skills and knowledge areas that an
employee agrees to master in order to pursue a
specific performance goal successfully. Behavioral
goals are set to define behaviors that a person needs
to do in order to achieve success. In some respects,
behaviors result from a need to achieve or obtain
some desired result, but in other respects, behaviors
result from one’s belief that he or she can actually
do what needs to be done. Put more simply, a
person’s self-efficacy or belief that he or she can
perform the task is a necessary component in the
attainment of a specific outcome.
This leads us to suggest that there are contingen-
cies concerning both the person and the job role’s
tasks that will determine the types of goals manag-
ers should use, individually and in combination, to
obtain the desired employee performance. The pur-
pose of this article is to propose a three-step ap-
proach for practicing managers to use that will
enhance employee performance through the
strategic use of goal setting. The first step of this
approach requires a manager to assess the mix of
R.C. Ford
performance, learning, and behavioral goals that
best fit the characteristics of the tasks with those
of the employee. The second step uses Drucker’s
manager’s letter approach to ensure that managers,
working with employees, set SMART goals (i.e.,
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable, and
Time-limited). Third, I provide suggestions based
on subconscious goal setting and priming research
addressing how managers can reinforce each goal
and help motivate their employees to achieve these
goals.
1.1. Step 1: Identifying the fit between
job and person
In this first step, the contingencies are defined and
show how the identification of the match between
individual and tasks will determine the best combi-
nation of goals to increase performance. In the cube
below (see Figure 1), different situations are pre-
sented that call for heavier versus lighter emphasis
on performance, learning, or behavioral goals in
some optimal combination. After explaining each
of the eight possible combinations, I offer guidelines
for determining which goal-setting strategy to follow
in each.
Each combination defines a managerial strategy
for determining the best fit between an employee
and the tasks that the employee must perform in a
specific job role. The logic is straightforward. In all
organizational roles there are multiple tasks that
make up an employee’s job. Some tasks are well
known to the employee, while others are brand new.
The well-known task is the ideal situation for setting
performance goals. The brand new task is the ideal
for setting learning goals. Service tasks–—in which
there is interaction between customer (internal or
external) and employee and employees must display
desired behaviors while interacting with customers
to produce a positive experience–—are ideal for set-
ting behavioral goals. This model, along with the
eight categories it describes, shows that all job roles
call for some ideal combination of the three types of
goals managers should set for employees. Some roles
will include tasks that require a heavy emphasis on
performance goals, while others will require a heavy
emphasis on learning goals, and still others will
require a heavy emphasis on behavioral goals. This
does not mean, as the model shows, that when one
type of goal is emphasized heavily the other two
types are ignored. It does mean that different types
of tasks, which different types of employees are
performing, will require a manager to attend to
the unique situation of each task-employee combi-
nation in selecting a goal-setting strategy. One com-
bination of goals will not fit all employees in a job
Combining performance, learning, and behavioral goals to match job with person 347

[(Figure_1)TD$IG]Figure 1. Matching best combination of goals with employee

role. Finding the best combination for each employ-
ee in each job is key.
To use a non-employee situation as an example,
consider a golfer setting goals. This individual may
set a performance goal for a particular score on a
round, a behavioral goal on slowing his/her back-
swing while playing the round, and a learning goal of
mastering a new putting stroke. Likewise, a retail
store manager may set (or preferably co-set with an
employee in a participatory process) a performance
goal for selling a specific number of units or a
dollar amount of sales in a retail store, a behavioral
goal of smiling when greeting each customer,
and a learning goal of mastering the necessary
information about the products carried by the
store. In both examples, the person performing
the tasks associated with a job (playing golf or
selling retail) will benefit from setting not just
one type of goal, but a combination of goal types.
Moreover, the manager (or the golfer) setting goals
will achieve the best performance by combining
these three types of goals in an optimal combination
that best fits the unique abilities of the employee
with the performance requirements of the job. A
new golfer or retail employee will need more em-
phasis on learning and behavior goals than one with
significant experience. The point is that the power
of goal setting is multidimensional. Successful man-
agers realize that they can effect the best employee
performance by strategically incorporating all
three in some ideal combination that best fits the
person and the job.
To help managers find the best fit, I present each
of the eight combinations of performance, learning,
348
and behavioral goals as defined in our cube and then
discuss the managerial goal-setting strategy for each.
In Figure 1, each of the eight combinations are
labeled to reflect a typical application where the
combination is the best fit for a typical employee.
Since there is no such thing as a typical employee,
given the many variations people bring to a job role in
personality, experience, and abilities, nor a typical
job, the discussion of each combination below is
intended to serve as a starting point for managers
seeking to identify the best combination of goals to
elicit best employee performance. By starting with
typical scenarios, managers can identify the best
strategy to fit their employees to the tasks associated
with their various organizational roles. It should also
be noted that this is a somewhat crude model as the
degrees between heavier and lighter emphasis are
many. Nonetheless, this model offers managers a path
to gain the proven benefits of goal setting by finding a
match between an employee and the best combina-
tion of performance, learning, and behavioral goals.
1.1.1. Cell 1: Newly hired experienced
employee in a customer-facing service job
Cell 1, the newly hired experienced employee in a
service job, is a typical employee combination.
Here, the organization has hired a new employee
with the necessary experience to perform the tasks
in a job role. The newly-hired salesperson, server,
stockbroker, bank teller, claims processor, taxi driv-
er, and call center employee are common examples.
When Zappos hires a new but experienced employee
for its call center, it has to spend time and money
training that person to the Zappos culture and ways
of doing business. If the employee has worked in a
call center before, his/her experience is not likely to
be anything like Zappos or what it expects from its
employees. Thus, while the company can reasonably
set high but achievable performance goals to match
the prior experience the employee has in call center
operations, it also has to set high learning goals as
the new employee will have to learn how to perform
the job the Zappos way. Furthermore, this new
employee will also require training with a heavy
emphasis on behavioral goals, as the displayed
behavior in customer interaction expected of Zappos
employees is likely to be different from anything the
new employee has experienced previously.
1.1.2. Cell 2: Newly hired experienced
employee in a structured professional job
In Cell 2, when a newly hired experienced profes-
sional employee is brought in to a professional
service firm, the employing firm can reasonably
expect that this employee will already possess the
appropriate behaviors to perform the job role.
R.C. Ford
Indeed, this will be assessed in the recruiting process.
Thus, the nurse, dentist, tax accountant, lawyer,
engineer, or college professor will come to the orga-
nization with the proven ability to display the behav-
iors associated with the professional role. Although
possessing experience does not eliminate the need to
set behavioral goals, it is likely unnecessary for an
experienced professional to concentrate on them.
While there might be a higher priority on setting goals
for behaviors that promote greater student interac-
tion with a newly-hired professor, for example, the
traditional assessment of teaching ability in the hiring
process means that a heavy emphasis on setting
behavioral goals should be unnecessary.
On the other hand, for the newly hired professor
there would be a focus on performance and learning
goals as these would be important components of
role performance. Similarly, a newly-hired litigation
attorney has a heavy billing goal–—to generate the
revenue needed to cover the salary and law office
overhead–—and a heavy learning goal of staying
abreast of legal changes in litigation practices, but
only a light behavioral goal. Likewise, the practicing
tax accountant has a heavy performance goal
(to generate billable hours), plus a heavy learning
goal (to ensure that the person stays current with the
ever-changing tax code), but the behaviors associat-
ed with successful task performance in the profes-
sional accountant’s role should only require light
emphasis.
1.1.3. Cell 3: Experienced employee in a
customer-facing job
This cell is typical of a currently employed and trained
customer-facing service employee scenario, wherein
there is a heavy emphasis on performance and
behavioral goals. The examples would be similar to
Cell 1 except here there is less emphasis on learning
goals as the employees have been with the organiza-
tion long enough to know the culture or ‘the way
things are done here.’ While there are always new
things to learn that require, even for these employ-
ees, the need to set learning goals, the emphasis is
lighter.
For people in this category, it is important to
perform a service task quickly and efficiently but
also to display behaviors that are consistent with
excellent customer service. These roles contain the
tasks that are considered as requiring emotional
labor on the part of the employee. The McDonald’s
counter server knows that it is not only important to
get the hamburgers to the customer in the allotted
time but to do so with a genuine smile while serving
them. The McDonald’s manager should recognize
that this behavioral expectation comes with an emo-
tional price and there will be a need not only to set
Combining performance, learning, and behavioral goals to match job with person
behavioral goals for the server, but also to ensure
that these customer-facing employees get the train-
ing and support necessary to cope with this emotion-
al labor. It is not fun for most people to smile while
asking hundreds of people daily if they want fries
with their burger. Thus, managers setting goals for
employees in customer-facing roles spend consider-
able effort and time setting both behavioral and
performance goals. A typical situation might entail
setting production-type goals of customers served
with a behavioral goal of smiling and making eye
contact with each customer served.
1.1.4. Cell 4: Newly hired experienced
employee in a production job
This cell describes the longer term employee who is
performing a typical production-type task that has
no direct customer interaction. Cutting trees for a
forest products company, installing a dashboard at a
Ford assembly plant, or packing boxes of Twinkies
are examples of situations where the emphasis is
heavy on production goals and relatively light on
learning and behavioral goals. The car coming down
the assembly line, like the tree in the forest or the
Twinkie, does not care if the assembly worker or
tree cutter or Twinkie packer smiles while perform-
ing the task. Likewise, there is a lighter emphasis on
learning goals as the tasks are largely repetitive and
routine. The output goal is the primary emphasis.
While even these jobs should have some behavioral
and learning goals set that would benefit both or-
ganization and employee, the emphasis on anything
but production output goals is necessarily lighter.
When workers at a tire manufacturing plant report
that their objective is ‘round and black and out the
back,’ the goals set will be primarily focused on
production output numbers.
1.1.5. Cell 5: Newly hired inexperienced
employee in a customer-facing service job
This cell describes the new hire of an inexperienced
employee. Unlike the employee in Cell 1 who comes
to the job with prior training and experience, this cell
describes the type of goal setting that best fits the
new employee in a first job. Here, the strategy is to
focus the employee’s attention on learning the tasks
associated with the job role and the desired customer
interaction behaviors, with a heavier emphasis on
setting learning and behavioral goals and a lighter
emphasis on performance goals. Thus, a newly hired
retail cashier would have goals that emphasize cus-
tomer contact behavior and mastery of the cashiering
task. Performance goals are lightly emphasized,
as the primary focus for the employee is to master
the tasks of the job while displaying the behaviors
desired of employees performing those tasks.
349
This cell fits almost any service-focused job that
requires a newly hired and inexperienced person to
learn tasks and behaviors, from an HR counselor
trainee to a recent college graduate starting a career
as a consultant to a bank customer service represen-
tative who has never before been employed. The
best fit for this person is to focus on setting goals to
learn the tasks and behave appropriately while per-
forming them. Once these are mastered, the expe-
rienced employee can move to a different cell where
the emphasis is on performance. It should also be
noted that this cell encompasses those in job training
programs. The focus of the training for these indi-
viduals new to the workforce should be on displaying
appropriate job behaviors while learning task per-
formance skills. This means that those leading the
training can realize the greatest value of goal setting
by selecting the proper match between person and
job role identified in this cell.
1.1.6. Cell 6: Newly hired inexperienced
employee in a production job
This cell is similar to Cell 5 except there is no
customer service component to the role so the
emphasis on behavior is lighter. In this cell, jobs
are entry-level production tasks. These can range
from simple production tasks like making raincoats
by applying a pattern die to rolls of plastic fabric to
more complicated tasks such as installing jet en-
gines on newly-produced aircraft. Both trainees
should have a heavier emphasis on learning goals
with a lighter emphasis on both performance and
behavioral goals. Again, it should be noted that
while there is a heavy emphasis on learning goals,
there should also be performance and behavioral
goals. For example, a gradually increasing perfor-
mance goal that reflects a normal rate of mastery of
the task would be an appropriate goal to set in order
to keep everyone focused on the effectiveness of
the learning goal. Likewise, and similar to job
readiness training programs discussed above in Sec-
tion 1.1.5., behavioral goals should be set in order to
keep the employee’s focus on job-related behaviors
that lead to successful job performance (e.g., track-
ing work breaks, absenteeism, and tardies; docu-
menting performance improvements/skill mastery;
keeping a diary of lessons learned in training).
1.1.7. Cell 7: Experienced employee in an
unstructured professional job
This cell represents a situation in which performance
is very difficult to measure and the skills required
have already been mastered by the job holder. Role
examples would include political lobbying, big ticket
sales, chair of an investigatory committee, or a
doctoral student writing a dissertation–—all roles
350
where the interaction between stakeholders and
organization require long, developing, and uneven
relationships. This makes the setting of SMART per-
formance goals difficult, if not impossible. Instead,
the emphasis for employees performing jobs in this
cell must be on the behavioral goals the employee
sets in order to accomplish the tasks associated with
the job role rather than learning or performance
goals. If one’s job is to sue big oil for environmental
damages, knowing what to do or how long to do it are
outside most individual’s ability to set performance
or learning goals that are specific, measurable,
action oriented, reasonable, or time limited. On
the other hand, setting SMART goals for behaviors
that are likely to lead to a legal outcome is not so
difficult. This same logic applies to lobbying Congress
on tax law changes favorable to one’s employer,
negotiating sales of airplanes, or getting a student
to finish a dissertation. These roles all lend them-
selves to strong behavioral goals when the uncertain-
ty of the task makes both learning and performance
goals more difficult and not easily connected to the
job role. Again, this does not mean they should not
also be set, but it does mean that behavioral goals
should take precedence.
1.1.8. Cell 8: Experienced employee in a job
structured by others
This cell describes job settings in which the person
performing the task has relatively little control or
input into how the task is performed. Goals are still
worth setting but each of the three types is only
lightly emphasized as the amount of control
the person has over task performance is minimal.
The jobs that fit this cell tend to be those that are
machine paced (e.g., assembly line), team paced
(e.g., team production processes, sequential tasks
dependent upon someone’s prior completion), or
externally paced (e.g., waiting for a phone to ring
or customer to arrive). While a behavioral goal of
responding quickly once a customer arrives or the
phone rings might be set, production goals (except
for how long it takes to process something once it
arrives at a work station), and learning goals (unless
management decides to fill in waiting times with
learning opportunities) are lightly emphasized.
Once the type of situation described in each of
the eight cube cells is matched to the employee
and the job, the ideal mix of goals can be identified
and set by the manager responsible. Obviously, as
noted above, this is a fairly simple model as there
are more than eight combinations. The model does,
however, introduce managers to the idea that there
is an ideal combination of goal types to set based on
the fit between employee and tasks. The value of
the model is to remind managers that all employees
R.C. Ford
should have goals and that goals should be set for
performance, learning, and behavior in the combi-
nation that best matches the employee with a job.
While the level of emphasis for each employee in a
job role will vary, the opportunity to enhance per-
formance using goal setting theory is substantial.
1.2. Step 2: Employee engagement in
goals through manager’s letter
In order to fully capture the power of goal setting,
employee participation must be included. Not every
manager is comfortable with the idea of employees
participating in goal setting, but the practice is
backed by clear evidence. The more involvement
employees have in setting goals, the more likely it is
that they will set even higher goals than those
assigned by a supervisor without employee input.
When employees help to set goals that plan the
battle, they are less likely to battle the goals set
to achieve the plans. This is not only due to increased
ownership of the goals by employees, but also
increased understanding that comes from the discus-
sion over the whys and wherefores of the set goals.
There are numerous ways to engage employees in the
goal-setting process. The manager’s letter, based
on the long-accepted logic of Management by
Objectives (MBO) developed by Drucker (1954), is a
widely-accepted practice. MBO is a proven, success-
ful technique for gaining the benefits of employee
participation. While it is called a manager’s letter, it
can be used as a goal-setting tool across all levels of
an organization. MBO has three critical elements that
make it an effective means for implementing a goal-
setting process in an organization: (1) it requires
participation, (2) it puts the goals in writing, and
(3) it forces managers to think through the types
of goals that they want to hold their employees
responsible for achieving.
Drucker’s MBO process is typically structured
through a manager’s letter format (Ford & Bell,
1977). Essentially, this letter is initiated by the
subordinate and written to a boss. The following
six items are detailed in the letter:
1. The boss’s job mission with its objectives and
goals;
2. The employee’s job mission with its objectives
and goals;
3. The performance criteria a subordinate believes
are applied to his/her work;
4. Organizational helps and hindrances that impact
goal attainment;
Combining performance, learning, and behavioral goals to match job with person
5. The subordinates’ sub-objectives that will lead
to overall objectives, goals, and mission; and
6. The specific activities that will be undertaken
that will lead to accomplishment of sub-objectives
and, consequently, to overall job objectives and
goals.
Thus, as an example, a newly hired professional
(Cell 2) would have an opportunity to write out
the boss’s mission and goals, his or her own mission
and goals, and the things the organization does or
does not do to enable goal achievement. In the
fourth step, the overall goals are broken down into
sub-objectives that, if achieved, would lead to the
accomplishment of overall job objectives. The im-
plementation of the participatory goal-setting pro-
cess as defined here is in the sixth item when the
employee breaks down the sub-objectives of the job
role into specific task areas he or she presents as
specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, and
time-limited goals. The employee defines SMART
goals for performance, learning, and behavior goals.
Once the employee has written the letter, the pro-
cess of participation begins. The conversation with
the boss is the opportunity to work out any miscom-
munications, inadequate understanding of roles, and
what it actually means to set goals that are SMART.
Once the conversation between boss and subor-
dinate ends in agreement, this letter becomes a de
facto contract between boss and subordinate. It
makes clear what the employee is supposed to be
doing in the next period of time for each type of
goal. Moreover, the set SMART goals can motivate
goal attainment, serve as self-monitoring bench-
marks, and provide performance review metrics.
The point is that the use of the manager’s letter
is a proven participatory tool for implementing the
goal-setting process identified in the first step above
as the manager collaborates with the employee to
find the best match of this employee’s abilities with
the tasks in the job in terms of determining the
combination of performance, learning, and behav-
ioral goals. The manager’s letter can, for both
manager and employee, define what performance
is expected from each of the three types of goals to
motivate employee performance.
1.3. Step 3: Priming goal achievement
Once goals are set, agreed upon, and written down in
a manager’s letter format, the manager has one
more research-based tool to use to enhance goal
attainment. Since the biggest drawback to goal set-
ting is the cognitive capacity required to attain them,
social psychologists have been investigating ways to
351
expand employees’ capacity to process information.
One important solution is priming. Derived from the
work of Bargh and colleagues (Bargh, 2005; Bargh &
Chartrand, 1999), priming is defined as a temporary,
nonconscious activation of behavior. Although the
explanation of how priming actually activates behav-
ior is still being debated, some scholars suggest (e.g.,
Chatrand, Dalton, & Cheng, 2007) that environmen-
tal factors can trigger goal activation, which affects
goal-directed cognition and behavior without the
person being made aware. In other words, priming
can affect behavior in the absence of conscious
attention or awareness of pursuing a goal. In its
simplest explanation, priming relies on previously
learned associations–—saving brain power–—to cue
behaviors. Thus, if we hear brakes squealing, we
jump to a safe place without conscious thought. If
we smell chocolate chip cookies baking at a theme
park, we think of eating. If we hear Italian music
in a wine store, we are inspired to buy Chianti
(Ford, 2014). In other words, sensory signals remind
us of previous associations, which cause us to act.
In applying this knowledge to performance goal
setting, we have learned that hanging posters of
athletes achieving success increases the productivi-
ty of call center solicitors (Latham & Piccolo, 2012;
Shantz & Latham, 2009). Subconscious performance
goals are primed when the priming reminds people
of past successes and builds their self-efficacy or
belief that they can do the assigned tasks. The same
is true if the prime reminds people that perfor-
mance enables the fulfillment of valued needs.
In priming behavior goals, playing fast music in a
restaurant speeds up eating time (Spense & Shankar,
2010), seeing a smiling face on a receipt increases
customer satisfaction (Brcic & Latham, 2016), and
labeling a video game race car as a ‘Red Bull’ primed
game participants to drive more aggressively than
they would with non-Red Bull cars (Brasel & Gips,
2011). In the service industry, pictures of smiling
people are posted on cash registers to prime clerks to
smile when handling customer transactions or small
mirrors are installed throughout the business so the
employee can self-monitor his or her own smile. To
increase performance during learning goal exercises,
showing pictures of Rodin’s The Thinker can prime
thoughtful reflection on what needs to be learned.
Not only can employee performance be improved
through goal setting, but using subconscious priming
can be used to increase performance with all three
types of goals (Latham & Locke, 2012). As a word of
caution, there are some situations where priming is
not effective. People occupy different life spaces,
have different memories, come from different cul-
tures, and thus will respond to a prime in different
ways. A prime that might motivate one employee to
352
try harder might have the opposite effect on another.
One person might be motivated to learn better
by seeing The Thinker, while another person may have
no knowledge of what this famous statue should
evoke.
In spite of the variation people bring to the work-
place that makes all managerial strategies subject to
misinterpretation or ineffective results, priming of-
fers useful possibilities for managers seeking to en-
hance the value of goal setting by reminding
employees of the goals they helped set with appro-
priate subconscious primes. While the power of
subconscious goal setting is just beginning to receive
serious scholarly attention, it offers a powerful ad-
ditional way to motivate employees to achieve goals.
2. Putting goal theory to work
The purpose of this article is to present a three-step
strategy to enhance employee performance through
the strategic use of goal setting. These steps are
designed to enable managers to find the best com-
bination of goals that best fit the employee in
performing the tasks associated with a specific
job role. Here is a summary of these steps:
 Step 1: The first step is to identify the cell (see
Figure 1) in which the employee and the job are
located in order to identify the ideal mix of
learning, performance, and behavioral goals for
that person in that specific job role.
 Step 2: Once the manager has identified the cell
that represents the best fit, the next step is to use
the manager’s letter as a tool to engage an
employee in the goal-setting process, force the
manager to think carefully through the goals that
fit the employee in that cell, and provide a docu-
ment for both manager and employee to track and
ultimately assess the progress toward goal
achievement.
 Step 3: Once the manager’s letter is created,
which defines and commits the employee to the
SMART goals tailored for them while performing
the job, priming cues can be added to motivate
and enhance employee performance.
While no one can guarantee success, the research
evidence is clear: Goal setting is a powerful tool for
increasing employee performance. Goals should be
set so that they best fit the employee doing a task
and can be set for performance, learning, and be-
havioral outcomes. In addition, goal setting works
better when the employee is engaged in the process.
The manager’s letter is a powerful, well established
R.C. Ford
tool for the manager and the employee to co-create
SMART goals and subconscious priming is an effective
way for managers to enhance employee goal
achievement.
References
Bargh, J. A. (2005). Bypassing the will: Toward demystifying
the nonconscious control of social behavior. In R. R. Hassin,
J. S. Uleman, & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The new unconscious
(pp. 37—58). New York: Oxford.
Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The mind in the middle:
A practical guide to priming and automaticity research. In
H. T. Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of research methods
in social and personality psychology (pp. 285—293). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Brasel, S. A., & Gips, J. (2011). Red Bull ‘‘gives you wings’’ for
better or worse: A double-edged impact of brand exposure on
consumer performance. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 21(1),
57—64.
Brcic, J., & Latham, G. P. (2016). The effect of priming affect
on customer service satisfaction. Academy of Management
Discoveries, 2(4), 392—408.
Carroll, L. (1865). Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. London:
Macmillan.
Chatrand, T. L., Dalton, A. N., & Cheng, C. M. (2007). The
antecedents and consequences of nonconscious goal pursuit.
In J. Y. Shah & W. L. Gardner (Eds.), Handbook of motivation
science (pp. 342—355). New York: Guilford.
Drucker, P. F. (1954). The practice of management. New York:
Harper & Row.
Ford, R. C. (2014). Prime time: The strategic use of subconscious
priming to enhance customer satisfaction. Business Horizons,
57(2), 269—277.
Ford, R. C., & Bell, R. R. (1977). MBO: Seven strategies for success.
S.A.M. Advanced Management Journal, 42(1), 14—24.
Latham, G. P. (2012). Work motivation: History, theory, research,
and practice (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Latham, G. P., & Locke, E. (2012). The effect of subconscious
goals on organizational behavior. In G. P. Hodgkinson & J. K.
Ford (Eds.), International review of industrial and organiza-
tional psychology (Vol. 27, pp. 39—63). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Latham, G. P., & Piccolo, R. F. (2012). The effects of context
specific versus nonspecific subconscious goals on employee
performance. Human Resource Management, 51(4), 511—523.
Latham, G. P., & Seijts, G. H. (2016). Similarities and differences
among performance, behavioral, and learning goals. Journal
of Leadership and Organization Studies, 23(3), 225—233.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting and
task performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful
theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey.
American Psychologist, 57(9), 705—717.
Odiorne, G. F. (1965). Management by objectives: A system of
managerial leadership. Marshfield, MA: Pitman.
Seijts, G. H., & Latham, G. P. (2012). Knowing when to set
learning versus performance goals. Organizational Dynamics,
41(1), 1—6.
Shantz, A., & Latham, G. P. (2009). An exploratory field experi-
ment of the effect of subconscious and conscious goals on
employee performance. Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes, 109(1), 9—17.
Spense, C., & Shankar, M. U. (2010). The influence of auditory
cues on the perception of, and response to, food and drink.
Journal of Sensory Studies, 25(3), 406—430.