Offense: As the CEO of EDS, Dick Brown pushed ego-driven, unrealistic goals onto his sales staff. While such tactics may be temporarily motivating, it's not long before they're discouraging and expensive.

Classic Stumble: In 2001, Brown decided that 2002 revenue had to grow by nearly 60 percent, and committed to that number for the Board of Directors.

Given that it took over 42 years for the company to get to $21.1 billion, increasing revenue by $13 billion in a single year would be no small feat. Brown's immediate strategy to hit the revenue goal was growing the sales force by 50 percent.

A sales VP confided that he was required to hire a certain number of people by a specific date, regardless of whether or not the candidates were qualified. EDS paid big signing bonuses and agreed to higher salaries than they would have otherwise.

The results of this grand strategy? Revenue for 2002 grew by just 2 percent. The total value for contracts signed fell by $7 billion. Earnings per share fell by 53 cents. Within 24 months, nearly 95 percent of newly acquired sales talent left the company. What happened to Dick Brown? In March of 2003 he was fired. When the bar is out of reach, we set ourselves up to fail. Worry and frustration follow.

Get Over It: Reality-check your goals with people who aren't afraid to give you the unvarnished truth. Are you setting the goal to push the team forward or because someone else did it and you need to "prove" you can, too? Don't just rely on your dreams and charisma. If you're leading a company, or a team, your dreams and theirs are tied -- like it or not.

Take heed: The warning about setting unrealistic goals is far from an endorsement of complacency. You can have lofty objectives, but remember to attune to reality before setting those objectives.