Stretch Yourself

One of my pet peeves is when people just do enough just to get by. I think they cheat themselves and others when they don't stretch themselves to be their best.

When I worked for Owens Corning, the management team would get together to develop our operating plan for our respective regions for the following year. Part of the operating plan was to develop goals that would support our plan. During this process, a manager would invariably develop goals that would not challenge his/her team.  We called it "baking the plan," which meant that achieving those goals was a sure thing.

When this happened, the rest of the management team would challenge the manager to develop "stretch goals." These are goals that are designed to provoke managers to push not only themselves, but also their teams to raise the bar on their performance.

Leaders challenge others to be their best. If left alone, many will only do what they are told or only what they think there are able to do.

Good leaders always look for ways to encourage and challenge their teams to rise above mediocrity.

Good leaders demand that their teams stretch their abilities to achieve results they never thought they could achieve.

In weight training a good trainer will get you to do just one more push up and lift that weight just one more time.  In order to achieve excellence in anything you will need to stretch yourself beyond your self-imposed limits, and when you do, the achievement will be so much more satisfying.

Don't just get by, STRETCH YOURSELF!