ABSTRACT

The effectiveness of any action plan aimed at achieving a social goal is the joint product of the plan, and the skills and attributes of the social actor who carries out the plan. The probability of goal attainment is reduced when a plan is relatively ineffective and communication attributes and skills are negative. The two intermediate cases are likely to fall somewhere between these extremes in terms of the likelihood of goal attainment and highly effective plans that are poorly realized because of negative communication attributes and skills are likely to be judged to have considerable substance but no 'style.' One potential method for assessing the effectiveness of a plan is to have individuals create plans to achieve goals and then have the plans evaluated before any attempt is made to reach the goal. In this case the assessment of plan effectiveness is independent of whether the plan actually brings about the desired end state.