This week Peter Hunter explains how to set performance targets that inspire rather than demotivate staff.

Setting performance targets can have a negative effect on the ability of the workers to achieve them. The workforce perceives performance targets as the management telling them what they should be doing.

Telling people what to do makes them resist doing what they have been told, for no other reason than they have been told what to do.

It has been shown that when people set their own targets they are almost always higher than any the management would have set and are almost invariably achieved because the workforce "own" the targets and therefore take pride in their achievement.

If instead of setting the targets you ask the workforce what they think they can achieve, you will be startled by the results.

Read the question that inspired this advice and other members' responses here.