“Fresh Starts” Can Backfire
Performance resets are common: For example, metrics such as sales tallies and billable hours are often set back to zero at the start of a calendar cycle. This is thought to inspire people to set new goals and strive for improvement. But what about people who were already doing well? A new study finds that for them, resets are demotivating and cause performance to decline.
The researcher analyzed archival data from Major League Baseball. When a player is traded to a team in a different league, his season-to-date statistics are reset. Examining traded players’ at bats from 1975 to 2014, the researcher found that trades across leagues had a bigger effect on batting averages than trades within a league—and whether the effect was positive depended on pre-trade performance. When that was one standard deviation below the league average, an across-league trade was followed by a nine-point increase in batting average; when it was one standard deviation above the league average, an across-league trade was followed by a 13-point decline. Subsequent experiments involving word searches and anagrams found a similar pattern: Resets helped low performers but hurt high ones. This happens, the researcher says, because resets affect self-efficacy, or confidence about future performance. When people regard their past performance as weak, a reset boosts self-efficacy and increases the motivation to continue, but the opposite occurs when people regard their past performance as strong. These findings can help companies leverage resets as a motivational tool, the researcher suggests. “Given a chance to put past performance failures behind them, employees may…recover more easily,” she writes. “However, managers should be aware that performance resets affect employees differently…. [They] may consider communicating positive expectations to and instilling confidence in top performers when a reset occurs.”
