Latham wrote in 1990 Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, “New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 15, no. 5 (2006): 265–68.
“the right things,” said Latham In an email responding to fact-checking questions, Latham wrote: “When people lack the ability to attain a performance goal, that is, a goal having to do with a specific desired result such as a golf score of 80 or a 23% increase in revenue, [improper focus or tunnel vision] may occur. The solution is to set a specific, challenging learning goal where the emphasis is on discovering/developing a process, procedure, system that will enable you to improve your performance such as [coming] up with 5 ways you can improve your putting as opposed to put the ball in the cup in no more than 2 strokes.”
business school, for help Kerr was initially one of twenty-four consultants brought in by Jack Welch to expand Work-Outs throughout GE.
more long-term plans Noel M. Tichy and Stratford Sherman, “Walking the Talk at GE,” Training and Development 47, no. 6 (1993): 26–35; Ronald Henkoff, “New Management Secrets from Japan,” Fortune, November 27, 1995; Ron Ashkenas, “Why Work-Out Works: Lessons from GE’s Transformation Process,” Handbook of Business Strategy 4, no. 1 (2003): 15–21; Charles Fishman, “Engines of Democracy,” Fast Company, October 1999, http://www.fastcompany.com/37815/engines-democracy; Thomas A. Stewart, “GE Keeps Those Ideas Coming,” in Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Barry A. Stein, and Todd D. Jick, The Challenge of Organizational Change: How Companies Experience It and Leaders Guide It (New York: The Free Press, 1992): 474–482; Joseph P. Cosco, “General Electric Works It All Out,” Journal of Business Strategy 15, no. 3 (1994): 48–50.
“turn out great” In an email responding to fact-checking questions, Kerr wrote: “I stressed to the leadership teams that ‘saying no to a bad idea is as useful as saying yes to a good one,’ but that they couldn’t dismiss any recommendation by saying things like: ‘We thought of that already,’ or ‘We tried it before and it didn’t work.’ I always made the point that Work-Outs present a terrific opportunity to teach people about the business, and that they owed people a professional, courteous explanation as to why they didn’t support a particular recommendation.”
SMART criteria In an email responding to fact-checking questions, Kerr wrote that he never encouraged people to submit proposals without a rough plan and timeline. “The details of the plan would have to be sketched out after approval,” he wrote.
“ideas are fair game” Cosco, “General Electric Works It All Out,” 48–50.
Japan’s railway system Ronald Henkoff, “New Management Secrets from Japan,” Fortune, November 27, 1995.
invent a faster train The story of Japan’s bullet train as it was told to Jack Welch (and has been repeated in popular nonfiction) differs slightly from the historical record. The account given here reflects the story that was told to Welch, but there are some details that story did not include, such as the fact that the concept for high-speed rail was explored but then abandoned by the Japanese railway prior to World War II. In an email responding to fact-checking questions, a representative of the Central Japan Railway Company wrote that in the 1950s the “Tokaido Line, the main line of Japan, was very crowded and [passengers had] been increasing because of the economical growth after the war, and Japan had to meet the growing needs of passengers to move between Tokyo (capital and largest city) and Osaka (second largest city). Actually there was a concept of ‘Bullet train’ before the WWII, [in] 1939…but because of the war, that plan [had] been suspended. Japan National Railway decided to build [a] new line by standard gauge (many of Japanese conventional [lines adopted] narrow gauge) in 1957. The plan [was accepted] in 1958 by the government and construction had started.” It is also worth noting that private efforts at developing faster trains were also occurring at the same time in Japan. The Odakyu Electric Railway, for instance, was developing a train capable of going ninety miles per hour. For a better understanding of the history of the bullet train, I recommend Toshiji Takatsu, “The History and Future of High-Speed Railways in Japan,” Japan Railway and Transport Review 48 (2007): 6–21; Mamoru Taniguchi, “High Speed Rail in Japan: A Review and Evaluation of the Shinkansen Train” (working paper no. UCTC 103, University of California Transportation Center, 1992); Roderick Smith, “The Japanese Shinkansen: Catalyst for the Renaissance of Rail,” The Journal of Transport History 24, no. 2 (2003): 222–37; Moshe Givoni, “Development and Impact of the Modern High-Speed Train: A Review,” Transport Reviews 26, no. 5 (2006): 593–611.
120 miles per hour In an email responding to fact-checking questions, a representative of the Central Japan Railway Company wrote that “in Japan, [a] JNR (Japan National Railway) engineer was considered [the] elite of Japanese engineers at that time, and the engineer who designed Shinkansen (Mr. Shima) was one of the engineers of JNR….He [had] been working in JNR [a] long time already and had knowledge and experience about railways.” Mr. Shima, the spokesperson noted, was asked, starting in 1955, to oversee Tōkaidō Shinkansen. “At the time of the bullet train project in 1939 I mentioned before, they were already planning to design trains which have [a max speed of] 125 mph. [The] engineer of Shinkansen had the clear aim of tying Tokyo to Osaka by 3 hours from the beginning, and [the] prototype called ‘Series 1000’ achieved 256 km/h (160 mph) in 1963.”
into the 1980s Andrew B. Bernard, Andreas Moxnes, and Yukiko U. Saito, Geography and Firm Performance in the Japanese Production Network (working paper no. 14034, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2014).
“bullet train thinking” S. Kerr and S. Sherman, “Stretch Goals: The Dark Side of Asking for Miracles,” Fortune, November 13, 1995; Sim B. Sitkin et al., “The Paradox of Stretch Goals: Organizations in Pursuit of the Seemingly Impossible,” Academy of Management Review 36, no. 3 (2011): 544–66; Scott Jeffrey, Alan Webb, and Axel K-D. Schulz, “The Effectiveness of Tiered Goals Versus Stretch Goals,” CAAA 2006 Annual Conference Paper (2006); Kenneth R. Thompson, Wayne A. Hochwarter, and Nicholas J. Mathys, “Stretch Targets: What Makes Them Effective?” The Academy of Management Executive 11, no. 3 (1997): 48–60; S. Kerr and D. LePelley, “Stretch Goals: Risks, Possibilities, and Best Practices,” New Developments in Goal Setting and Task Performance (2013): 21–31; Steven Kerr and Steffen Landauer, “Using Stretch Goals to Promote Organizational Effectiveness and Personal Growth: General Electric and Goldman Sachs,” The Academy of Management Executive 18, no. 4 (2004): 134–38; Kelly E. See, “Motivating Individual Performance with Challenging Goals: Is It Better to Stretch a Little or a Lot?” (manuscript presented for publication, Duke University, June 2003); Adrian D. Manning, David B. Lindenmayer, and Joern Fischer, “Stretch Goals and Backcasting: Approaches for Overcoming Barriers to Large-Scale Ecological Restoration,” Restoration Ecology 14, no. 4 (2006): 487–92; Jim Heskett, “Has the Time Come for ‘Stretch’ in Management?” Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge, August 1, 2008, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5989.html.
their own workflow Fishman, “Engines of Democracy,” 33.
goal would have done that In an email responding to fact-checking questions, a spokesman for General Electric wrote that “the Durham plant was created with the flexibility to make such dramatic change[s]. Many adjustments were in process when the plant was opened in 1992. Durham from its inception was created as an ‘incubator’ for new manufacturing practices at GE Aviation. Yes, Jack [Welch] set the bar high—but given the aggressive competition in the aviation business, these goals were a requirement to be successful and to generate the kind of income necessary to fund new engine developments at that time (namely the GE90).”