Chapter 6. Providing Challenging Opportunities
In the long run, people hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
—Henry David Thoreau
Is Thoreau giving good advice? An aspirational goal—something exciting and maybe even a bit scary to aim at—can be highly motivating, giving meaning and purpose to otherwise dull tasks. On the other hand, that bit about ''failing immediately'' is somewhat alarming. Thoreau may have had more tolerance for failure than many employees do today. If you as a manager set employees up for failure with seemingly impossible goals, you will accidentally hurt motivation instead of helping it. So either way, goals have a big impact on motivation, and they ...
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