Self-concordance strategies as a necessary condition for self-management

Self-management is often seen as a panacea to problems encountered in autonomous working conditions in today’s organizations. However, we theorize that these strategies, such as goal-setting and self-rewards, will not be effective when used in isolation. Instead we hypothesize that self-concordance strategies (i.e., self-regulatory strategies that help to align daily tasks with a person’s goals, identities and values) will need to be used alongside self-management strategies to achieve the highest levels of performance and creativity. We tested this hypothesis in two complementary studies. The first study revealed that the quality of individual student assignments (judged by external raters) was improved when self-management strategies were used in conjunction with self-concordance strategies but not when self-management strategies were used on their own. The second study utilized a training intervention in a workplace setting and again found that those participants who reported increases in the use of both self-management and self-concordance strategies showed improvements in self-reported creativity but those who increased only self-management strategies did not. Our results suggest that self-concordance strategies should be incorporated alongside the traditional elements of self-management training (goal setting, self-rewards, self-observation and cues) to maximize performance and creativity.