A management education 21 years ago I was a bright young thing. I was single, had a good job and I was determined to make my way in the world. I am a strong believer in education so I decided to study for an MBA. I learnt about: Operations Marketing Information Technology Human Resources Finance I […]
Targets Work!
In praise of the goal On the 25th of May 1961, in a speech before the joint session of Congress, the President of the United States set his country a goal: This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him […]
A World Without Objectives
Objectives: could we manage without them? How would we cope? The guys in H.R. would throw up their hands in horror. We couldn’t rate our staff. Pay for performance would flounder. Annual appraisals would become a farce. We wouldn’t know what we were doing. How could we manage our businesses? But how do we manage with objectives? They just get […]
Issues, Incidents and Risk Events
Boring meetings Issues, incidents, risk events, screw ups, call them what you will, we all have them. Somewhere in your organisation somebody is logging them, categorising them and recording them. That somebody also has a target to reduce them. And every month they hold a meeting to discuss how they are doing. And — be honest — […]
SMART Goals, VAGUE Dreams
SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely. Nothing apparently unreasonable there. And yet this whole approach jars. It feels very controlling, very blinkered, and very task-oriented. It is a method that allows managers to “objectively” assess their direct reports, and grade them accordingly, so finds great popularity with HR departments and the mindset prevalent in […]