Having standards is not enough. They must be the correct standards. By correct means not too low, not too high. If you set them too low you will lose productivity; valuable resources will be wasted. Low standards are also demotivating. Challenge and job satisfaction go hand in hand. When standards are too low people become sloppy in their work. When they can do their jobs with their eyes closed, their attention is lost and needless errors are made.
Standards that are too high are a problem as well. When standards are unrealistically high, the manager has no yardstick for determining how well the people performed. The standard is meaningless. Standards that are too high are also demotivating. If people know that the standards are impossible, they will reason “Why try at all? We can’t reach them anyway.” The standards become a source of frustration. If people consistently strive to meet the standards without success, they will feel like failures which will eventually affect their morale and performance.
The goal is to set standards high enough so that people have to work exceptionally hard to reach them and low enough so that they are attainable.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
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