The Downside of Focusing Only on Reaching Targets

There’s more to life than reaching targets – Try including life skills for support to achieve a more balanced life?

When a company focuses solely on reaching targets and continually pushes employees to reach these goals, the side effects often result in a high turnover and burnout rate.
​Ironically, this can cause the company NOT to achieve its targets in the desired timeframe. Pushing too hard in one direction results in an inevitable push back from the opposite direction. This is a law of nature that applies to the business world as well. 
 
Stressed employees trying to reach sometimes unrealistic or unnecessary targets tend to operate at half of their capacity. They start to make mistakes and lose track of the details amid their overwhelming work schedules. They tend to suffer physically exhaustion as well. All of this hurts productivity, the very thing the company is trying to increase. 

Some companies already offer support to their employees but are still only truly committed to reaching targets (quantity produced) rather than to the wellbeing of the individuals (quality of life). Trainings alone are not enough -- it takes a quality workplace to achieve any kind of balanced and grounded overall life.

What makes a workplace have quality?

In a quality workplace the following is true:
Happiness drives success, not the other way around. 

• An engaged, happy employee is more inclined to look forward to work on a Monday morning. 
• An engaged, happy employee is a person who is comfortable to be at work. 
• He trusts that problems will be resolved, not ignored.
• She has a boss who knows how to listen and offer support. The boss has the skills, ability and time to think about long-term goals and make time for her. 
• He is able to take a moment now and then to shift his attention from the stressful stuff to something uplifting. 
  
  

It has been my experience as a coach  with more people working from home since Covid 19 that companies are taking more care and offering in their employees’ more support with personal development.
These companies are willing to invest in their people to bring out their full potential. Some of the personal developments steps are a mixture of time management, stress management, increasing their self-awareness while enhancing interpersonal skills.
Higher levels of self-awareness, stress management techniques, self-reflection and a clearer understanding of expectations (the employees’ and the company’s) lead to increased productivity.  

This kind of workplace (virtual or not) leads to happy people who are:

• More creative
• Better problem solvers 
• Quicker problem solvers 
• More productive team players and leaders 
• More likely to take time for play in order to reduce stress and worry - in turn this increases creativity andproblem-solving

 
The result of managing emotions through setting up a quality workplace, results in people with positive emotional resources, in other words, people who are content at work have higher levels of engagement and productivity. They also enjoy more job security, take fewer sick days and are less likely to quit or become burned out. 
Bosses who manage their own emotional energies well are far more likely to lead teams of engaged employees. It is a win-win.
​Think in terms of ‘Actions speak louder than words’ - lead by example.

When people are happier, they perform better.
 
Companies that invest in their employees’ personal development are more likely to retain their people than those that focus only on targets. 
​
By Suzie Doscher, Executive Coach focusing on Personal Development,
Self-help Author 
​Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash​​

As a professional coach now for 17 years I agree with these wonderful tips.
The article was published in 2007, the information and tips remain the same 17 years later. Personal development, curiosity, self-awareness, self-care plus the motivation to keep moving forward in your private life as well as working life are vital to a satisfying and successful life. I can confirm this as a 68 year old as well as a professional coach.