Defining the metric People get very excited about metrics; they spend hours debating exceptions and accuracy. The definition becomes everything. Imagine the conversation: My Boss: You take too long to get to work in the morning; we must measure performance. What should the target be? Me: I’m not sure; there are several things we should […]
Pointless Conversations
Management meetings Do you ever lose the will to live in management meetings? Sometimes they are so bad I want to scoop out my eyeballs with a tea-spoon. I’d do anything to get out of the conversation. I hate futile meetings that are a waste of everybody’s time — usually highly paid people’s time. Here […]
The Proxy for Performance
Did you hit your numbers? It is a common challenge. You must make your numbers. You must smash your sales target You must slash your budget You must decimate your waiting times If you’ve hit your numbers then you’ve met your performance goals. Numbers and performance are synonymous. But the numbers are only a proxy […]
Myopic Management
The quick fix Managers are problem solvers. We spend our days finding issues and fixing them: We solve the problem of low sales by offering discounts. We solve the problem of high costs by cutting budgets. We solve the problem of poor quality by extra inspection. Our time is filled with discrete problem after discrete […]
Do Targets Work or Not?
In summary: I hope the last two posts have demonstrated admirably that: Targets work Targets don’t work I also trust that is nice and clear. So which is it? The problem isn’t the target, it’s the culture. Do you have a culture that accepts that failure is inevitable when you are pushing the boundaries? Does your culture treat failure […]
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