Why Do Pointless Corporate Rituals Survive Even When Everyone Knows They Are Pointless?
Please write your goals for this term.
“Dress properly.” “Wear a helmet when required.” “Follow the rules.” “Communicate better.”
Hold on.
Those are not ambitious goals. They are baseline job requirements.
A helmet is not a six-month strategic initiative. You do not save it for the year-end review.
Yet the form gets completed. The employee writes something because something has to go in the box. The manager approves it while wondering why this meeting exists. The next manager forwards it upward.
Then the next year arrives.
The ritual respawns.
This article is not an argument that goal setting itself is useless. Research on goal-setting theory shows that specific, challenging, accepted goals can improve performance under the right conditions.[1] A meta-analysis also found added value when feedback was combined with goals rather than using goals alone.[2]
The real question is different:
Why does a goal-setting form survive after nobody is actually using it to change behavior?
Organization theory has several good answers.
0. Thirty-second version: the system stops producing goals and starts producing evidence that the system was performed
Ritualized goal management tends to survive through a combination of factors:
- Effective goal setting gets confused with filling a goal field.
- Baseline rules are promoted into “goals” because empty boxes look bad.
- Having the procedure signals that the company is properly managed.
- Because other firms use similar systems, continuation requires little explanation.
- The cost of the waste is spread thinly across everyone, while the responsibility for abolition concentrates on the reformer.
- Reform requires meetings, persuasion, coordination, replacement processes and political energy.
- Real effects are hard to measure, but a 100% submission rate is easy.
- The target quietly changes from “improve performance” to “complete goal setting.”
What gets completed is not the goal.
It is the procedure.
And procedures can outlive the work they were created to support.
1. Goal setting can work. That does not mean goal-writing homework works
Locke and Latham’s work on goal-setting theory shows that specific and challenging goals generally outperform vague instructions such as “do your best,” provided relevant conditions such as capability, commitment, task structure and feedback are present.[1]
Neubert’s meta-analysis found an additional effect from combining feedback with goal setting rather than goal setting alone.[2]
So “all goals are stupid” is not the lesson.
Useful goals look like:
- reduce changeover time from 30 minutes to 20;
- cut defect rates from 3% to 1.5%;
- reduce first-response time from two days to one.
There is a visible difference between the current state and the desired state.
By contrast:
- dress properly;
- wear required protective equipment;
- do not be late;
- communicate;
are usually basic standards.
Promoting the baseline into a goal does not upgrade the work.
It merely creates the strange task of rediscovering obvious duties so that a form can be filled.
2. A helmet is a rule, not a growth objective
Safety makes the distinction obvious.
“Wear a helmet in designated areas” should be a clear operating rule supported by a system that makes compliance easy.
If helmet non-compliance is a real problem, the improvement objective is something else:
- identify why people miss the requirement;
- move storage to the point of entry;
- simplify the check;
- reduce missed-wear incidents;
- redesign onboarding.
Those are changes from the current state.
The principle is simple:
Separate the system that enforces a standard from the goal that improves the standard or its execution.
Otherwise year-end reviews become comedy.
“This employee successfully wore a helmet when required. Achievement: 100%.”
Congratulations.
That was the entry condition.
3. MBO became widespread in Japan, but dissatisfaction was also widespread
A 2019 article in The Japanese Journal of Labour Studies cites surveys reporting that, as of 2013, 88.5% of surveyed Japanese companies had introduced management by objectives, while a 2018 survey found that 98% reported some problem or dissatisfaction with their own MBO systems.[3]
These are historical figures, not a claim about the 2026 adoption rate.
Still, they show a striking pattern:
widely adopted and widely disliked at the same time.
Reported issues included alignment between organizational and individual goals, managerial coaching, goal-setting interviews, follow-up during execution, and inconsistency in evaluation.[3]
A 2019 Annual Review of performance management reached a related conclusion internationally. Heavy systems combining cascaded goals, competency models, behavior ratings and results ratings had often become tedious and low-value, driving experimentation with simpler goals, real-time feedback and coaching.[4]
The lesson is not “make the form more elaborate.”
It is:
Do not confuse running a performance-management machine with improving performance.
4. Why a system can survive after disconnecting from the work: myth, ceremony and decoupling
Meyer and Rowan’s classic institutional theory argued that formal organizational structures are adopted not only for technical efficiency but also because they signal legitimacy and rational management.[5]
On paper:
company strategy → department goals → individual goals → daily behavior → evaluation → development
Beautiful.
In practice, it can become:
daily work → decided through real-time operational judgment
goal sheet → written at the start of the cycle and archaeologically rediscovered at the end
The official system and the actual work become decoupled.
Yet the procedure still proves that:
“We set goals.” “Managers conduct reviews.” “We have a performance system.”
The organization starts managing the appearance of management.
The goal sheet becomes less like an operating system and more like a compliance screenshot.
5. Everyone else does it: institutional isomorphism makes stopping harder than continuing
DiMaggio and Powell described coercive, mimetic and normative processes that make organizations in the same field grow similar.[6]
This maps neatly onto performance management.
- large companies use it;
- consultants teach it;
- management training normalizes it;
- HR professionals inherit it as standard practice;
- appraisal software arrives with goal fields already built in.
So saying:
“We will continue MBO this year”
requires little defense.
But saying:
“We are deleting individual goal sheets”
immediately triggers questions:
“How will we evaluate people?” “What about development?” “Bonuses?” “Documentation?” “Poor performance cases?” “Auditability?”
The status quo travels by air. Change needs a business case.
That asymmetry alone protects many rituals.
6. The strongest mechanism: the waste is distributed, but the cost of reform is concentrated
Imagine a company with 1,000 employees. If goal setting, midyear review and evaluation consume only two combined hours per person each year, that is 2,000 hours.
Large number.
But each person experiences only two hours.
Nobody personally feels “this system burned 2,000 hours.”
Now look at the person who wants to remove it.
They inherit:
- current-state analysis;
- replacement design;
- executive persuasion;
- cross-functional coordination;
- labor and compensation consistency;
- system changes;
- manager training;
- FAQs;
- resistance management;
- accountability when anything breaks.
So:
the cost of keeping the waste is diluted across the organization, while the cost of removing it is prepaid by a small number of reformers.
Of course “we will do the same thing again” wins often.
And organizational change itself consumes energy. Research on change fatigue finds that greater change frequency is associated with greater fatigue, which can be linked to poorer outcomes through lower satisfaction and commitment.[7] Recent reviews also emphasize that employee responses to change are not simply “resistance is bad,” but depend on multiple cognitive, emotional and contextual factors.[8]
This creates the ultimate corporate joke:
you may need a new change program to eliminate an unnecessary program.
Many reforms die right there.
7. The unbeatable KPI: 100% submission
The real questions are difficult:
“Did productivity improve because of the goal system?” “Did development accelerate?” “Did fairness improve?”
Causal answers are hard.
These numbers are easy:
- goal registration rate;
- review completion rate;
- rating completion rate;
- on-time submission rate.
The system slowly mutates.
Original: “Use goals to improve performance.”
Middle: “Make sure everyone has a meaningful goal.”
Terminal: “Make sure everyone fills the goal box by Friday.”
Submission rate: 100%.
Meaningfulness rate: unavailable.
And 100% looks wonderful in a slide deck.
“We achieved 100% goal-setting completion.”
The process has turned itself into its own KPI and begun defending itself.
This is no longer management by objectives.
It is management of management by objectives.
8. Employees and managers going through the motions is not always laziness
The employee thinks, “whatever.” The manager thinks, “why am I inventing this?”
That looks like disengagement.
But if the information does not change any decision, low-effort compliance can be rational.
If the goal does not affect:
- pay;
- assignments;
- training;
- priorities;
- resources;
- managerial support;
then there is little reason to write a masterpiece.
The mismatch is even clearer when someone’s future employment is uncertain.
“What is your goal for next year?”
may reasonably produce:
“Will I even be here next year?”
The critical issue is not whether the goal sounds impressive.
It is what decision the goal is connected to.
A goal with no downstream use is not management information.
It is decoration.
9. Why the “manager who is about to quit should abolish it on the way out” idea feels powerful
There is a darkly appealing idea in office politics:
A manager who is already planning to leave has less future political cost to fear, so perhaps that person can finally kill the pointless process and take responsibility.
There is logic to it.
But “I abolished it, goodbye” is fragile. The organization can simply restore the old process after the person leaves.
A stronger move is to convert abolition into an experiment.
For example:
“Pause individual goal sheets for six months. Replace them with a ten-minute monthly check on priority, obstacles and support required.”
Track:
- management hours;
- evaluation disputes;
- safety outcomes;
- productivity;
- quality of conversations;
- training actions;
- cases where the missing goal sheet caused an actual problem.
If nothing breaks, the company now owns evidence that the old system was not essential.
That survives a person better than heroics do.
The best departing gift is not:
“I deleted the ritual.”
It is:
“I left a way to test whether the ritual deserves to exist.”
10. What should remain? Keep decisions, not paperwork
You do not need to abolish every form of goal setting.
Keep only what connects to real decisions.
Goal
What changes from the current state?
Feedback
Are we moving? If not, what is blocking us?
Support
What must the manager or company provide: authority, equipment, training, budget, coordination?
Relationship to evaluation
If goals affect evaluation, explain how. If they do not, do not pretend they do.
Baseline rules
Safety, dress, attendance and legal compliance belong in operating standards, not fake development goals.
Then “wear a helmet” can finally leave the goal sheet.
The useful question becomes:
“Why does non-compliance happen, and how do we design the work so that correct behavior is natural?”
The purpose of goal setting is not to manufacture prose.
It is to change future action.
Shorten goals nobody reads. Stop processes nobody uses. If nobody can explain why a ritual exists, remove it temporarily and compare.
And remember:
“We do it every year” is evidence of recurrence, not evidence of value.
Companies need rules.
But sometimes the rules themselves need a performance review.
“What did you actually produce this year?”
If the goal sheet cannot answer,
maybe its contract should not be renewed.
Sources
- Locke, E. A. & Latham, G. P. “Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation: A 35-Year Odyssey.” American Psychologist, 2002 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Neubert, M. J. “The Value of Feedback and Goal Setting Over Goal Setting Alone and Potential Moderators of this Effect: a Meta-Analysis.” Human Performance, 1998 doi.org
- Nakahara, J. et al. “Operation of Management by Objectives and Employees’ Intrinsic Motivation.” The Japanese Journal of Labour Studies, No. 709, 2019 jil.go.jp
- Pulakos, E. D., Mueller-Hanson, R. & Arad, S. “The Evolution of Performance Management: Searching for Value.” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2019 doi.org
- Meyer, J. W. & Rowan, B. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology, 1977 jstor.org
- DiMaggio, P. J. & Powell, W. W. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review, 1983 doi.org
- Cox, C. B. et al. “Mapping the nomological network of change fatigue: identifying predictors, mediators and consequences.” Journal of Organizational Change Management, 2022 doi.org
- Oreg, S. & Sverdlik, N. “Responses to Organizational Change: Evolution of the Concept, Established Findings, and Future Directions.” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2026 doi.org
