Does a deadline make you work harder

Factual Questions
1

This is akin to my bonus question.

Our Regional Directors don’t want the Sales Managers to be updated regulary (except every quarter - the goals are based half year) as they say if they know where they are they won’t work hard.

This argument has some merit as one of our Sales Manager met her entire goal(for the half year) in one month - June. The half year of course ended June 30th. There is also a cap. You can only make 175% of your goal. You don’t get anymore bonus should you excede this. However the extra still counts toward the team goal.

(the managers have indivdual goals and one as a team. If they meet the team goal they all split it evenly - now that is another thread)

I must say all the manager seemed to be busting their butt off to get their goals made in June. And the ones that were so far gone just basically quit trying.

Do you think this really has to do with them knowing where they stood. I must stay I was the only person in our Regional Divison that had the goals figured out on June 29th. (Save any bookings on the 30th.) So I knew where everyone stood all along and kept them informed.

2

Goal-meeting has a nasty habit of taking on crisis proportions.

In crises, only the very most important needs are addressed in order to avoid imminent danger, and concomitantly, less important tasks are ignored.

Given enough time in a crisis situation, the sum of the mundane can eclipse that of the individual essentials in importance.

In some countries, this sort of policy was once known as a “Five Year Plan”. But I’ll not try to lecture a Markxxx about communism.