A great follow-up by Dale Emery to my post about maximizing learning. He quotes a Harvard Business Review article from 1969 by J. Sterling Livingston, reprinted in the January 2003 issue.
Dale writes, “Livingston says that people’s motivation and productivity are highest when the boss’s expectations are both realistic and achievable. What does [he] mean by “realistic and achievable?” This: “[…] The degree of motivation and effort rises until the expectancy of success reaches 50%, then begins to fall even though the expectancy of success continues to increase. No motivation or response is aroused when the goal is perceived as being either virtually certain or virtually impossible to attain.”“