??? 幾年前的一個早晨，肯特聽到辦公室外傳來大笑聲，他發現幾位同事正圍在公司頂尖的平面設計師查理身邊。查理毫無疑問是肯特所領導的營銷部最受歡迎的人，但同時也是體型最龐大的人。

????肯特走過去，這時，有人告訴他：“查理減掉了25磅體重。”查理的體重可以說是辦公室八卦的老話題，不過經常都是他自己先提起來的。

????肯特說：“太棒了，恭喜你！”盡管減肥這件事與管理沒什么關系，但接下來他說的這句話顯然是老板的風格。他問：“你的目標是要減掉多少？”

????笑容從查理臉上消失了。

????他說：“呃，就是25磅。”

????這一刻也讓肯特感到相當尷尬。事后他私底下向查理道歉，查理說：“你當時說的也對。我確實該再瘦一些。但我曾加入一個減肥團體，所有人都發誓拼了命也要減掉25磅，所以這個數字也變成了我的目標。”

????減肥和企業績效之間并無關聯，但查理的經歷也印證了一個我們常常忽視的“機會缺口”原則，因為身處團隊的我們會深受團隊規范的影響。

????“機會缺口”是指，我們當前的業績與我們有能力達成的業績之間的差距。然而，我們經常關注的是業績缺口而非機會缺口。業績缺口是我們當前的業績與外界對我們的期望之間的差距。我們總是滿足于達到別人的期望，而不是達到我們真正能力所及的水準。

????的確，期望有時可能會超出我們自身的能力。查理的身體狀況或許決定了他很難減肥。或者，分配給一位推銷員的任務量完全屬于不切實際。但預期常常只反映了一部分潛能。比如，查理最終減掉了四倍于減肥團體目標的體重，這就是他的機會缺口。但他曾一度迷失于業績缺口，將減肥團體預期的25磅作為自己的終極目標。

????我們認為，業績缺口和機會缺口之間的不一致也印證了六十年來我們從教學、研究、實踐和觀察中得到的經驗，那就是大多數經理人都未完全發揮出自身實力。他們本可以在自己的崗位上表現得更好，但他們卻停止了努力。

????每次我們請公司老板評價自己作為領導者和管理者的表現時都會看到這種情況。絕大多數人都認為他們能夠做得更好。當我們問及如何才能做得更好時，很多人都能指出至少一個值得改進的領域，其中最常見的答案是“授權”。

????如果很多管理者，甚至是大部分管理者都認為他們能做得更好，也應該做得更好，他們為何不積極采取措施謀求改善呢？

????要成為一位卓越的管理者，需要長期不懈的努力，也可能需要艱苦的自我改造。踐行管理原則原本就不是件容易的事，再加上這方面的成功榜樣也并不是太多。

????這些原因自然都發揮了一定的作用，但我們認為其中一個原因相當關鍵：公司對管理者預期過低。近期的一個數據讓我們著實為之一震：貝新聯合公司（Bersin and Associates）2009年進行的調查顯示，大約四成中層管理者表現“較差”或者“尚可”。

?????One morning, years ago, Kent heard loud laughter outside his office and found several people clustered around Charley, the head graphic designer who was easily the largest and most popular member of the marketing department Kent ran.

????"Charley lost 25 pounds," someone said when Kent joined the group. Charley's weight was a common topic of office conversation but only because Charley himself brought it up so often.

????"That's great, Charley," Kent said. "Congratulations!" Then -- always the boss, though this was hardly a management matter -- he asked, "What's your goal?"

????The smile dropped from Charley's face.

????"That," he said, "was it."

????It wasn't one of Kent's most sensitive moments. Later, when he apologized to Charley one-on-one, Charley said, "You were right. I need to lose more. But I got in a group and we all swore do-or-die to lose 25 pounds. That became my goal."

????To be sure, there's little connection between losing weight and business performance except that Charley's experience illustrates a principle -- the Opportunity Gap -- that we in business often overlook because we work in groups and group norms are powerful forces of influence.

????An opportunity gap is the difference between our current performance and what we'recapableof doing. Many times, though, we focus not on our opportunity gap but on our performance gap, the difference between current performance and what we'reexpectedto do. We're content to achieve what others expect rather than what we're truly capable of doing.

????Yes, expectations can sometimes exceed our capabilities. A medical condition may have made weight loss extremely difficult for Charley. Or a salesman may be given a quota that truly is unrealistic. But expectations often do reflect only a portion of what's possible. Charley, for example, ultimately shed four times what he lost in his weight loss group. That was his opportunity gap. But, for a time, he fell into the trap of accepting his performance gap, the 25 pounds expected by the group, as his ultimate goal.

????We believe the disparity between performance and opportunity gaps goes far to explain something we've observed in our combined 60 years of teaching, researching, practicing, and observation:most managers fall short of what they could be.They simply stop getting better at what they do.

????We see this every time we ask bosses to assess themselves as leaders and managers. The great majority say they could be better. When we ask how they could be better, many can identify at least one area -- "delegation" is a common answer -- where they have room for improvement.

????If many, and perhaps most, managers think they could and even should be better, why don't they take active steps to improve?

????Becoming a great manager requires persistent effort over a long period of time. It can require difficult personal change. Converting management principles into practice isn't easy. There aren't many role models.

????All those reasons play their roles, but we think one is key: Companies simply don't expect enough of their managers. A statistic we came across recently astounded us: A 2009 survey of companies by Bersin and Associates revealed that they considered nearly four of every 10 mid-level managers no better than "poor" or "fair."