“Hope plucked out of the air” I concur. Too many goals are arbitrary and reflect a total lack of knowledge of what the current system is actually capable of producing. It was either Deming or Joiner that said most managers are numerically illiterate and that is certainly reflected in the way they approach goal setting.

Thanks, Richard! Bret

I can’t (yet) prove this, but have been building a research file and plotting ways to get at then vs. now practices in management-by-goals. A Google search, part of the research, is how I found your blog on the subject.

Actually, just before your blog came up, I had Googled “dubious management goals” and was quite surprised that first up was a reference to a section from my own 2007 book. It’s some pages that raise all sorts of issues about performance metrics, management-by-the-numbers, and so on.

I see management goals (except necessary ones, such as the need to cut cash outlays, or the firm goes under) as hopes plucked out of the air. They are like New Years’ resolutions. Actually, those are always personal, and personal goals–maybe even small team goals–are okay. For some of us they motivate us–as constant reminders (e.g., to lay off the calories, or not be late to work). For many others, they fall flat, as they would without the goal, but no harm done.

A management goal is far different. It boils down hugely complex, interacting sets of variables to a single numeric. Achieving the number does what? Much better than that numeric goal is measuring progress by a trend line, the important characteristics of which are steepness, length (months, years), and evenness.

A few months ago I ran across some of the goals debate that has appeared in academic journals (I was a prof for years, but with more years doing applied research as an independent). I’ve corresponded with one of the lead authors, who had not made the connection between management goals and the performance measures–”metrics”–that are, in business, the main reason for the goals.

How can there be a goal that does not get tied to a performance number? How can the subject of management goals and numerics not be cause for a subtraction that reveals a performance gap? (Showing gaps is, parenthetically, the primary way that management consultants try to get contracts.) I find plenty of fault for the whole works. But most managers, irrationally, would be lost without their goals and metrics–and gap analysis.

Goal setting was a Big thing in the software firm I worked. There is the annual senior management forum where goals, targets and objectives are handed down from one layer to the next, top to bottom. In addition there are quarterly reviews where adjustments and corrections are made to goals and objectives.

It is hysterical and creates tension around the organization.. grave consequences will result if one can’t meet one’s goals.