Stretch goal is a goal deliberately set high, beyond what ordinary effort can reach. In exchange for its being acceptable to fall short, it becomes a trigger for changing the way you work. In this book, 2x, 3x, and 4x quotas are handled with this idea. Because simply raising a number does not make it a stretch goal, the goal is separated from performance reviews and reached by changing how you work.
Research points to one more important condition. Stretch goals are helpful only in organizations with strong recent performance and available slack (time and people) (See, Miller, and Sitkin, 2023). Setting an ambitious goal without that slack makes things harder, not easier. One reason this book keeps regular months open as "preparation months" and limits peak months to a few times a year is to create this slack.
Setting ambitious goals is not a bad thing in itself. What is lacking is not the height of the goal, but how it is handled. That is what Japanese companies should adopt from here on.
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