“We missed our target,” Mariana complained. “Again, we missed our target.”

“How so?” I asked.

“There are just so many hours in the day, so many minutes in the hour. I just can’t get the results we hoped for,” she explained.

“You are not getting the performance you want because you have not made it necessary,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Mariana wanted to know.

“Raise your hand,” I continued. “Raise your hand as high as you can.”

Mariana was puzzled but complied.

“Now, raise it higher,” I smiled.

Her head dropped, but she raised her hand higher.

“So, why didn’t you raise your hand as high as you could, when I first asked?”

“I don’t know,” Mariana replied, still puzzled.

“You didn’t do it, because it was not necessary. I did not make it necessary for you to perform at that higher level.”

“So, to make performance necessary, high performance necessary, as a manager, what do I do? Yell at the team?”

“Yelling only works in the short term and is only practiced by parents who have no children. Parents who have children know that yelling does not work. Yelling does not create necessity. Necessity is much more powerful than yelling.” I nodded.

“So, how?” Mariana was curious. “If necessity is so powerful, how do we create necessity?”

“There are many ways,” I continued to nod. “Let me ask again. When I first asked you to raise your hand as high as possible, you thought you did, but you didn’t. Why not?”

“Well,” Mariana thought harder, “I thought you just wanted me to raise my hand high. I didn’t know you wanted me to stretch.”

“Part of necessity is clarity. Not clarity in my mind, but clarity in your mind. Clarity in the mind of the team. We cannot make something necessary unless the standards of performance are clearly perceived by the team.”