Musings on Leadership

 If you're not familiar with the term, a "stretch" goal is a target that's set above what you expect to  accomplish. For example, if your non-profit usually raises $50,000 a year in donations, a "stretch" goal might be to aim for $60,000 for the coming year. Stretch goals aren't designed to scare you. They're designed to help you grow as an individual; to get you to think of new methods, techniques, and strategies; to get you to think outside the box. They're designed to be slightly uncomfortable because growth doesn't start until we leave our comfort zone. Think of the state as "productive discomfort". But do they work? American psychologist, and pioneer in goal-setting theory, Edwin Locke, looked at a dozen studies to see if he could find a quantitative correlation between a goal's difficulty, and its achievement. According to Locke, " the harder the goal the higher the level of performance...Although subjects with very h

I'm currently reading, " Measure What Matters " by John Doerr. This post will be very short - really just a question. The American philosopher and educator, John Dewey, once said, " We do not learn from experience ... we learn from reflecting on experience. " As a leader, do you periodically take time to reflect on your experiences? If you and your team have just finished a project, has the entire team taken a moment to reflect on the project, what they learned, what went wrong, what went right?  If you're not periodically taking time to reflect - how are you ever going to learn from your mistakes - or what you're doing right?