Winfried, you suggest that a group will cooperate to achieve an "ambitious
target." I agree. That's a good way to motivate a group to work
together.
However, I'd like to modify (slightly, but importantly) your [is it
Goldratt's?] definition of "ambitious." You wrote:
>Ambitious: Nobody believes that can be achieved.
Some pretty good empirical evidence exists (from McClelland's work) that a
more effective definition would be:
Ambitious: Everybody believes that there's only about a 50% chance of
achieving it.
Choosing a target that nobody believes can be achieved is de-motivating
(as is choosing a target that can be too easily achieved.) But choosing a
target that people believe they have about a 50% chance of achieving
maximizes motivation to achieve it.
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>