Mooncore Telescopes (a fictional company) manufactures telescopes for the amateur astronomer. The company wanted to improve organizational efficiency by creating the next generation telescope that could meet the needs of amateur and professional astronomers. The goal was to use the latest available technology to create a telescope that would provide an unimaginable view of space. In order to motivate employees and be in alignment with the vision, the company decided to use a strategy called “aspirational goals”. Stretch goals involve going well beyond currently achieved levels, to the point that employees do not clearly understand how to achieve the goal. In fact, employees generally react with great disbelief when offered ambitious goals. According to Kerr, S. and Landauer, S. (2004), organizations are motivated to use stretch goals for two main objectives. First, the goal is to improve organizational effectiveness, and the second is to improve personal growth and professional development. To be effective, ambitious goals must be implemented carefully. If the ambitious goal seems impossible to achieve or credit is not given to employees, progress toward the organization's goal could result in employee demotivation and, worse, the organization could see disappointing results . However, easy goals are also demotivating and unproductive. Therefore, it is essential that ambitious goals, when assigned, seem difficult and demanding, but nevertheless achievable. Because stretch goals are so difficult to achieve, the organization needed to address the question of how to respond to failure when employees did not meet the stretch goal. . Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, found himself in a similar situation where GE had... middle of paper ...... interviewing or observing them, and having them become trainers for your new hires. Improve processes. and remove obstacles. Ask employees how the process could be streamlined and remove any unnecessary steps. Remove any bureaucracy from the process and ask how to improve productivity. Celebrate and Reward Finally, celebrate achievements and reward those who worked tirelessly to achieve the ambitious goal (Zenger, 2009). Works Cited Kerr, S. and Landauer, S. (2004). Using ambitious goals to promote organizational effectiveness and personal growth: General Electric and Goldman Sachs. Academy of Management, 18(4), 134-138. doi: 10.5465/AME.2004.15268739Robbins, SP and Judge, TA (2011). Organizational Behavior (Vol. 14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Zenger, J.K. (2009) Stretch Goals. Leadership excellence, 26(7),6.