MBO History and Evolution – (3of10)
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Smart Goals (It’s in the goal details)
The SMART goal era of the 80’s and 90’s provided some helpful criteria about what makes goals more or less effective in shaping behavior. By definition, a goal that doesn’t shape behavior is ineffective. The theory went on to suggest that SMART parameters were good predictors of influential or effective goals. As an example, goals that were not specific or measurable were less likely to shape behavior than those that were high in these characteristics. Using a play on words, you were smart to include these characteristics in your goal and objective definition. SMART stood for the characteristics of: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable and Time-bound.
One of the almost palpable impressions of SMART goals is that they are pointed; they have an edge, often a sense of energy created by the specificity, the time limits and the measurement. Non-SMART goals seem flat in comparison (i.e. Improve productivity); bureaucratic, like one more strategic plan that’s going nowhere. While the enhancement to goal definition was a helpful direction, it did not address fundamental weaknesses in this model.
What were the weaknesses in the MBO assumptive base that forecast its demise in the work reality?
1. It emphasized the setting of goals over the working of a plan. Do you remember when it was in vogue to “visualize” your goal daily… as if that was going to make it come to pass?
2. It underemphasized the importance of the environment or context in which the goals were set. That context included everything from the availability and quality of resources, to relative buy-in by leadership and stake-holders. As an example of the influence of management buy-in as a contextual influencer, in a 1991 comprehensive review of thirty years of research on the impact of Management by Objectives, Robert Rodgers and John Hunter concluded that companies whose CEOs demonstrated high commitment to MBO showed, on average, a 56% gain in productivity. Companies with CEOs who showed low commitment only saw a 6% gain in productivity.
3. It didn’t address the importance of successfully responding to obstacles and constraints as essential to reaching a goal. The model didn’t adequately cope with the obstacles of:
• Defects in resources, planning and methodology,
• The increasing burden of managing the information organization challenge,
• The impact of a rapidly changing environment, which could alter the landscape enough to make yesterday’s goals and action plans irrelevant to the present.
Let ManagePro talk to you about effective MBO Software that makes the job easier.
———————————————————————————–
White paper prepared by Rodney Brim, Ph.D.
CEO, Performance Solutions Technology, LLC
www.ManagePro.com
Copyright 2004; all rights reserved
References:
One Minute Manager, by Spencer Johnson and Ken Blanchard, 2000.
The Fifth Discipline, by Peter Senge, et.al., 1994.
Out of the Crisis, by Edward Deming, 1986.
Performance Solutions Technology, LLC
Providing software applications that help manage the information necessary for a coordinated, collaborative, strategic work force
Call toll free (877) 487-3001
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
