Recently I was listening to an interview with retired Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke. He was asked how he felt when he scored his first century (100 runs) for Australia. He described incredibly strong emotions. The interviewer then commented how funny it was that a score of 98 had no comparison. Clarke agreed wholeheartedly.

It reminded me of a section in my book DECIDE How to Manage the Risk in Your Decision Making, titled Beware of Milestones. In it I tell stories about three elite sportspeople and the pressure milestones create. I then link the stories from the sporting field to business and warn about the dangers of hard milestones and the potential impact on culture. If you are looking for a way to have a conversation about performance targets in your business, then you may want to have a read. Here is the section from DECIDE.

I also wrote a blog a few years back that talks about focusing on recognition over milestones. Milestones not the be all and end all.