Paradox of Stretch Goals: Organizations

¶ … paradox of stretch goals: Organizations in pursuit of the seemingly impossible (Sitkin, See, Miller, Lawless, Carton, 2011). Presented in this analysis are the research objectives, methodology, major findings and implications of their research on management best practices in organizations today.

With the research objective of determining which methodologies, organizations and leadership conditions lead to the greatest level of success with stretch goals, the authors completed an extensive series of analyses on previously published research.

The methodology of this study concentrated on secondary research and aggregation of previous studies, culminating in the creation of a contingency framework the authors contend predict the success of stretch objectives over time. The methodology also seeks to unify the current body of research in the area of stretch objectives and deliver a predictive framework to determine which organizations have the greatest and least potential for success using this concept.

The major findings of this study indicate that stretch goals are paradoxically seen by organizations with the most limited resources as the strategy they can use to accelerate past current product, service or strategic issues into a higher level of performance. This paradox is one that the authors use a series of previous studies, organized into a taxonomy of factors discovered through the review process of their methodology, to illustrate (Sitkin, See, Miller, Lawless, Carton, 2011). This paradox is also illustrated in how stretch goals are designed to enable greater risk-taking and a focus on learning more aggressively and quickly in an effort to accelerate their accomplishment. Ironically stretch goals can have the exact opposite effect, a key finding from the taxonomy and framework the authors construct based on their analysis (Sitkin, See, Miller, Lawless, Carton, 2011). Ironically stretch goals could be the very worst strategy for a company struggling to attain more effective strategic direction and accomplishment. Another significant finding is the success of the ten-minute turn-around at Southwest Airlines. This was seen by many in the industry as impossible and had created a sense of disbelief when Southwest was able to attain it through a cultural shift in their organization (Sitkin, See, Miller, Lawless, Carton, 2011). This example shows that the cultural factors have to be congruent and focused on attainment of the objective, and most importantly, the structure of the company needs to provide plenty of resources for its attainment, all factors that favored the success of Southwest Airlines.

The implications for managers and leaders of companies are very valuable, in that the value of stretch goals is more dependent on a company's resources than any other factor (Sitkin, See, Miller, Lawless, Carton, 2011). The tendency to see the urgency and intensity that a stretch objective can deliver within an organization needs to be balanced with the realities of whether they can be accomplished or not. Another implication fro managers is whether their focus on stretch objectives are in fact the best course of action for their firm. In examples shown from the research completed, the authors point out that even with stretch goals attained the companies most need in transformation require significantly different levels of transformation than initially seen. Paradoxically the attainment of stretch goals can expose even greater risks and shortcomings in a business not designed to support the rapid acceleration of programs (Sitkin, See, Miller, Lawless, Carton, 2011).