What Do You Think of This?
What do you think of this statement — do you agree or disagree?
“One should always set the objective twice as high as one hopes to accomplish because one will always fall 50 percent short.”
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13 Responses to “What Do You Think of This?”
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About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Former director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
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So the idea is to set yourself up for failure to begin with, that way you can fail knowing that your target was unreachable from the start.
That might go against the “SMART goals” you posted… by not being Realistic.
Strongly disagree.
This is like people who “trick” themselves with their clocks by setting them ahead 15 minutes. It might work in the short term, but eventually you operate knowing that the clock is ahead. The sense of urgency is lost, because you think, “ahh, I’m fine, I have an extra fifteen minutes.”
Great trick if you always want to drive your employees with external motivators like threats and nagging, rather than taking advantage of internal motivators like personal satisfaction and accomplishment.
Sounds like one way to meet your objectives (i.e. what you hoped to accomplish) but I agree it is probably a bad idea. I think I would eventually (or perhaps right away) be tempted to underperform by more than 50% if I am not setting objectives with the intention of meeting them. So I say set realistic goals and objectives, but don’t be afraid to challenge yourself.
I agree with JohnM’s last sentence.
I disagree with the statement in question.
That’s not a great existence–making failure part of the equation for success. I would much rather know myself and my limits and learn to wisely steward resources like time and energy.
Definitely disagree with this statement. First, it is not Realistic. Second, it is humiliating
Disagree. We should pray for direction, research, work hard, and proceed as planned, trusting the Lord for the outcome. Sometimes it is beautifully beyond all we could have imagined. Sometimes we accomplish exactly what we set out to do. And sometimes it appears we have totally fallen short. But the Lord has a reason for whatever happens.
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps” (Prov. 16:9)
Also, “Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.”
This is perhaps the most concise formula for burnout that I’ve ever read.
Yikes! I tend to think of objective setting in terms of “achievable” but it’d be a darn good achievement if you achieve them all in the specified time table. That way they’re not impossible or a cakewalk.
Toyota said that their standards are base line. The bare minimum. They never wanted anyone to think in terms of limitation. Makes sense to me.
This statement makes me wonder what one really “hopes” to accomplish- the realistic goal, or the 200% goal. I disagree with this statement.