Setting Goals That Drive Performance: Goal-Setting Theory 

Do your best changes almost nothing. Learn the discipline behind Goal-Setting Theory: make a goal specific, calibrate its difficulty, choose the right type, ground it in belief, and support it so it delivers—and design a goal for your own team that actually moves performance.
  • Author: Dr. York

  • Level: Foundational
  • Study Mode: Self-paced
  • Recommended Period: 2 Weeks
  • Estimated Learning Time: ~14 Hours
  • Proficiency: 1 Graded Assessments
  • Award: 1 Certificate
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To ensure the best continuity in your learning, we recommend completing the course within the recommended completion period. The course is self-paced, so you can adapt your learning schedule around work and other commitments.
Course overview
Setting Goals That Drive Performance is a two-week applied micro-course on Goal-Setting Theory. It teaches a single, practical method: taking a real aim you are responsible for and shaping it into a specific, challenging goal that fits the task, is believed reachable, is genuinely committed to, is informed by progress, is resourced, and is guarded against its own side effects. A single running case—Dana Rourke, a newly appointed team leader at Northwind Appliances raising first-contact resolution from 68% to 80%—is carried through all twelve lessons, and you work the same steps on a goal of your own. No prior study of motivation theory is assumed. By the end of the two weeks, you can turn a vague aim into a goal that improves motivation and performance—and defend every choice in how you built it.
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  • Goal Setting Theory
  • Motivation
  • Performance Management
  • Employee Development

Your Instructor

Taught by a practitioner. Moderated by the same.
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Professionally, Dr York has worked in several hospitals in the Montreal area as a critical care technician in operating rooms and emergency departments, where he has been directly responsible for patients' life support. Dr. York is an active healthcare professional and instructor with numerous certifications and is a Fellow of the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada.
Dr. Donald York holds the position of Professor of Leadership Studies and Dean of Student Development at Monarch Business School Switzerland. Dr. York holds a D.Phil. & M.Phil. in Business Research with distinction from Monarch Business School and an M.A. in Counselling & Spirituality from St-Paul University, a college of the University of Ottawa. He also holds a B.A. in Behavioural Neuropsychology from McGill University in Montreal, where he also completed a Graduate Diploma in Leadership.

Dr York’s academic interests focus on: leadership, spirituality, organisational culture and group dynamics. He is an active supervisor and dissertation reviewer at the Master's and Doctoral levels. He is a Certified Management & Business Educator with the Chartered Association of Business Schools in the UK.