Tyler McIlvenna
October 29, 2014
Journal #4
Journal #4
Discussing Pitfalls in Goal-Setting I enjoyed last week’s discussion on goal-setting, and the issues that can come from this method of motivation. As I discussed in class, I have seen how the organization’s main goal or mission can conflict with the actual work. As I said, I work in the service industry. Like most restaurant’s, our main goal- whether you are a server or a hostess- is to make sure that the guest has the best experience possible, and, of course, the customer is always right. And yet, trying to achieve this goal can be de-motivating to employees. To explain better, it can sometimes seem impossible to achieve this goal, at least fully. Although on most days, the guests, for the most part, can be relatively easy to deal with, however not a day goes by that a server has an unhappy/unsatisfied customers. The problem with setting a goal of “ultimate guest satisfaction of all guests,” is that while it may be possible, given the factor that customers are always right, this factor is what can de-motivate employees. No matter the effort given, more often than not, it is things that are outside of their control that lead to customer unhappiness. An example from my hosting days is wait times. The Cheesecake Factory is always extremely busy on weekends and holidays, sometimes getting up to an hour or two hours’ wait. Although this is not the fault of the hosts or any other restaurant employee, it becomes impossible for the hosts to make sure that all of the guests are satisfied, given this wait. Therefore, as a host, guest satisfaction was not a priority, as it should have been. Things outside of my control prevented me from meeting this goal, so why should I put in a full effort when it could be ignored regardless?
Myth- Money Isn’t Everything Moving on to the article *Six Dangerous Myths About Pay,” I have experienced many cases that support the claims in this article. We have discussed them in class, as well as when the CEO and VP came to our class to talk. They stated- and I agree with this statement- that money only gets you so far. Of course, in the beginning, it is about making a living and being able to provide for yourself. However, my dad is the perfect example of how money sometimes just isn’t quite enough. My dad worked as a health and safety manager on a refinery for about 10 years. He has extensive knowledge on this subject, and was paid well for it. And yet, he wasn’t satisfied in his job. He wanted to move up, to corporate health and safety, where he would have opportunities to travel and leave his one refinery. However, executives would merely offer him raises and tell him what a good job he was doing- because they has nobody to replace his current position. And so, my dad changed companies. He now works in a job that pays about the same as his previous job, but provides more challenges and more variety in his work. And although his commute increased, he no longer had vacation hours, and was back to the bottom as far as seniority, he prefers this job over the less-satisfying job that had offered to pay him more money.