In the spirit of March Madness, marketing professor Jonah Berger and operations professor Devin Pope, both at Wharton, have been studying the NCAA basketball games. While their research won’t guarantee you a slam-dunk in the office pool, it could help you to energize your team.

The catalyst for the study was Berger’s experience coaching youth soccer. He noticed that the teams always seemed more energized and ready to fight when they were trailing at halftime. He wondered whether being slightly behind during a game motivated most teams enough to overcome the deficit.

He joined forces with Pope, and the duo analyzed 6,500-some college basketball games played between 2005 and 2008. In each, the difference in scores at halftime was within ten points.

Not surprisingly, they found that teams that held a lead of at least six points at halftime claimed victory four times out of five.

Next, they looked at games in which the difference at the halftime buzzer was just one point. Statistically, the trailing team should expect to win only about 46 percent of the time. In real life, however, the teams actually outscored their opponents by an average of 1.2 points in the second half. As a result, the squads that were trailing at halftime won 51.3 percent of the games.

What gives? Berger and Pope hypothesize that being slightly – but not too far – behind motivates players to work just a little harder. That translates to the workplace, they write. “Focusing on goals that are close and achievable may be more motivating than lofty but unrealistic goals.”

In fact, research by a colleague, Wharton marketing professor Maurice Schweitzer, indicates that setting unrealistic goals prompted cheating at a number of firms, such as Exxon and Sears, along with dangerously faulty products – the Ford Pinto is one – at others.

Clearly, there’s a need in the workplace for ambitious goals. However, they need to be accompanied by realistic time frames and appropriate oversight, so the goal doesn’t tempt employees to ignore potential risks. Had these been in place at the many firms that played a role in the various crises we’re now dealing with, the debacles might have been averted. ###