"You guys are sandbagging me" Andy growled. "Here's what we're gonna do. I want the next release out the door by the end of the third quarter. If you can't make it I'll find a team who can." His chin jutting forward, voice rising, eyes squinting and drilling into each team member, "And this bit about being able to only put in the top 21 features is bull! I want the top 30! Is that clear?" Panning the group, Andy was met with silence and stoic expressions. The only sound to be heard were muffled voices from the adjacent room. He reminded himself he had to remain tough to lead well. Demand the best and get the best, that was his motto.
Meanwhile, in the planning session next door, Brad was reviewing his team's next release. "OK, I think I understand where you're coming from, the difficult areas and the direction you feel we need to head. While I agree with it, there's something inside of me that says we can do better than this. How can we give our customers some sizzle that will create heavy demand for the product? Is there some way we can bring those top three wish list items over to the committed category? I know you said they don't provide as much function to the product, but look at the appeal they will create! How can we get those in as well? I want this product to fly off the shelves. How can we do that?" The discussion continued, tension mounted as team members felt stretched beyond their limits, but in the end the team felt they were up to the challenge by dropping a few smaller features. Summarizing, Brad asked, "So what do you think? Difficult but possibly achievable?" "I'm game," his lead programmer blurted out. "Yeah, let's go for it," said another. "OK, let's book it. Weekly status meetings like last time?" "You got it, chief! Let's rock and roll!"
What a contrast. All leaders want to motivate their teams to perform their best. Here we have two leaders demanding and challenging their teams to perform at a high level, but in different ways.
The question is, which approach is better, a softer or harder one? In order to answer that question it is important to review several issues: