Goal-setting gospel says participative goals drive engagement. But what if that’s only half the truth?
In the OKRs world, we love quoting goal setting pioneers Locke & Latham to add scholarly weight to our conversations. But quoting a line or two is one thing. Really digging into their work? That’s another level. I’ve read their 688-page tome (anything over 400 pages has to be a tome, not a book) “New Developments in Goal Setting and Task Performance” not once, but twice. Trust me people, it’s no beach read, but for anyone serious about systems like OKRs, BSC, 4DX, V2MOM, OGSM or any other strategy execution acronym, it’s required reading.
On my most recent pass, a few citations stopped me in my tracks because they challenged a sacred assumptions when it comes to how goals should be set.
“Assigned goals were found to be as effective as participatively set goals if both were at the same level of difficulty, and the rationale for them was explained.”
— Latham & Saari, 1979b
And again, from a review of 11 studies in both lab and field settings:
“When goal difficulty is held constant, an assigned goal is as effective as one that is set participatively. The caveat is that the logic or rationale for the assigned goal must be given.”
— Latham, Erez, & Locke, 1988
Autonomy is often held up as the key to engagement with OKRs – and there’s truth to that. But it’s not the whole story. The findings above echo what I’ve observed in practice: high performance doesn’t hinge solely on who sets the OKR – it depends on whether people understand the why behind it.
So yes when the situation calls for it (and sometimes it does), get leadership involved in the OKR-setting process, but don’t just drop goals from the sky and walk away. If you’re a leader and are going to assign an OKR, you have a responsibility: clearly and cogently explain the rationale. Connect the dots. Autonomy can be important. But clarity and context? That’s what drives true commitment.