A
commercial on TV: the young boy walked up to home plate on an empty
ball field with his bat, a ball, and a smile as he was prattling on
about the world's best hitter.
He
settles
in at the plate and, with
one more verse of world's best hitter,
tosses
the ball into the air. After the swish of a haymaker swing and no
thunk of the bat, he looks
down to see the ball lying quietly at his feet.
Undaunted,
still smiling, the boy again settles
at the plate, recites
world's best hitter
again, tosses
up the ball, takes
his swing. When he looked down, there's the ball at his feet once
again. His
smile fading with each attempt, he
tries several more times -
unsuccessfully - to hit the
ball, his world's best hitter
becoming less enthusiastic with each miss.
With
a 0 for many tries record, the boy's face is set in a frown, clearly
disappointed, and his head is hung – then it snaps up, the smile is
back, and he steps back up to the plate to take his stance. With a
megawatt smile, he tosses the ball up while saying the
world's greatest pitcher.
A
posthumous goal offers
some feel-good
for the boy,
but it creates
a detrimental result in other
situations.
A
manager says just do your best for the project output but adds 10%
more to 'goal' when critiquing the disappointing project results.
Or,
a project is due by the end of the week, but
at
noon on Thursday, the supervisor
says he wants it by the end
of the day.
A
goal
communicates intent. What
does a posthumous goal accomplish?
No comments:
Post a Comment