Lewis Carroll once wrote, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."
This can be fun for a tourist, but fatal for a business. In fact, it's probably guaranteed to be fatal for a business. After all, a tourist trip, however laissez-faire, really does have a goal of some kind; possibly several goals (eat great food cheap, learn Lao, get laid by a cute French girl, see what's over there, find a clean bed for the night, Discover Myself, etc.). So does a business - and no, "Staying in business" is NOT a proper goal. Sorry. Only clearly articulated, measurable achievements that everyone will know when you get there and they might ALSO keep you in business are goals.
Sadly, management by objectives fell out of favor some years ago. It had become reduced to a performance assessment tool for employees, meaning that eventually it deteriorated to a list of numbers on a paper that could be rolled up and used to swat the employee from time to time. While there is nothing wrong with assigning employees measurable productivity goals in some areas (produce 10,000 widgets per work day with 1% or less quality failure, for example), employees' goals sometimes did not include things that were more difficult to quantify, such as getting along with colleagues, coming up with new ideas, or practicing contagious enthusiasm. From those perceived shortcomings it was just a short fall into 'how the heck do they dare objectify me that way, I am a unique human being with unique skills and knowledge,' and subsequent sheepish obscurity.
Nevertheless, dragged out of the trash bin, dusted off, set back on its feet and fed a nourishing breakfast, management by objectives can be extremely useful to any organization that wants to succeed.
Cassandra once worked in a large division of a huge company. This division produced and sold a certain category of widgets. Every month, the sales department would meet with the production department. At these meetings - Cassandra is not making this up - the sales department would say, "We need XP million widgets next month." The production department would say, "We can produce XA million widgets next month." (XA being fewer, of course, than XP.)
Then - and remember that Cassandra is not making this up - the meeting would be over. The sales people would go back to their desks and the production people would go back to their production line. All month, customers would call to ask where the heck the widgets they needed were, and the sales people would explain that they were doing their best to get the production people to produce them. Then they would call for emergency production lots, which would - of course - interrupt the orderly work flow and make other productions lots late. Next month, there would be another meeting.
Eventually, the Great Mother Company sold the unprofitable and customer-toxic division. New management reduced the product range, sent customers whose widgets the division had never made very well shopping elsewhere, made the production process more efficient, and suddenly could deliver the number of widgets the customers wanted, when the customers wanted them. The old division began to turn a modest profit for the first time since Franklin Roosevelt was a household name.
This turnaround was not magic. It was management by objectives. In fact, in this case it was management by objective: one objective. That entire objective was, "Ship good, competitively priced widgets on time."
In order to reach that objective, sales and production held a meeting. In that meeting they actually talked to each other. They brainstormed (another '60's term - sorry) ideas that would allow them to reach that goal. First, of course, they had to all agree on what they meant by the terms "good" "competitively priced" and "on time." Then everything that impeded that objective was either fixed or jettisoned. Everything that made the widgets cost too much was either fixed or jettisoned. If they couldn't make a certain style of widget competitively, they sent the customer to a competitor. Everything that ruined widgets, or made bad widgets, was fixed. And every day a computer tracked every production lot of widgets so that the sales department could not try to sell widgets that could not be made on time. The same computer tracked the needs of the customers, so that production knew when they should finish and ship what kinds of widgets; the same computer had learned the production process, so it couldn't expect the widgets to be produced and shipped faster than actually possible. There were no more emergencies, so production was steady and predictable. The phone hardly ever rang in the sales department, except to place new orders for delivery dates that could be met. There was peace in widget land.
Ship good parts on time. It ain't rocket science. And what business can't define its most basic and critical goals in the same terms; in fact, in one single sentence? A factory, a restaurant, a visa office, a lawyer, they all can define their primary objective as delivering a quality product when it's wanted.
Define the objective. You only need one of them. Then remove from the process everything that impedes that objective, that no on will be arrested for not doing.
Result, success. Really. You won't be able to help yourself.
Well, fine, you say. But you're going on and on about management, while you already told us that management and supervision are two different things. So what's the supervision angle on this sermon? Are you ever going to get around to something I care about?
Care about this: supervision by objective.
If your organization has only one objective, it is pathetically easy for both you and your employees to know what you all should be doing, and do it. Is what you and they are doing at every moment helping to get good widgets out the door on time? Is it interfering with that objective? Does it have nothing to do with that objective, but is only an add-on that somebody once thought was a good idea, but isn't?
If any action isn't working toward that objective, either fix it or remove it from the process. Period.
No, you're not. You're interfering with the objective and making everybody crazy in the process. Stop that right now.
And for the rest of us, happy widget-making.
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