The New Why Teams Don't Work

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chapter 5 Misplaced Goals, Confused Objectives

The last three chapters were about valid team objectives having to duke it out with the objectives of individual team members. This chapter is about team objectives that are suspect all by themselves.

How many times have you heard colleagues say this: “The boss has given us such unrealistic objectives.”

They are really saying one of three things:

1. They don’t believe in the outcome. The boss is famous for his five-year plan. But no one has paid any real attention to it in, oh, five years.
2. They don’t believe the outcome is reachable. Maybe the boss is blowing blue smoke again, pulling figures out of a hat. Worse, maybe she read an article about “stretch goals,” and has the bright idea of stretching ...