How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals

Chapter 2

Goal Setting

There’s a wonderful urban myth about the power of goal setting. According to a host of motivational speakers and self-help gurus, back in 1953 researchers surveyed Yale’s graduating seniors to determine how many of them had specific written goals for their future. The answer: 3 percent. Twenty years later, researchers polled the surviving members of the class of 1953 and found that the 3 percent with goals had accumulated more personal financial wealth than the other 97 percent of the class combined!

It’s a terrific story, and a convincing tribute to the power of goal setting—“a vivid Ivy League success story that documents the cause-and-effect relationship between goals and personal success,” writer Lawrence Tabak explains ...