News Room

Congrats on your 1,500 LinkedIn connections. But did they help you snag a job? Weak online connections on job sites and social networking sites are no match for “strong connections” — i.e., close friends and family members with whom you communicate at least once a month — when it comes to landing a gig, according to a new study from INFORMS. 

Among the top three office distractions is setting goals that place unrealistic expectations on employees. A recent study in the INFORMS journal Organization Science found stretch goals actually undermine performance for most organizations - 80 percent of participants at the companies surveyed had failed to reach their assigned stretch goal.

Many employers hide behind a common misconception: If they set big goals, employees will be pushed to exceed expectations and reach peak performance. These are commonly referred to as "stretch goals," which are set beyond current capabilities. As a June study from the INFORMS journal Organization Science found, stretch goals actually undermine performance for most organizations - 80 percent of participants at the companies surveyed had failed to reach their assigned stretch goal.