objective-oriented management
In my former research, I showed that goal-oriented self-management leads to detrimental side-effects. Now, I work in a company that practices goal-oriented management. Recently, I experienced one of these side-effects. One of my objectives is to submit a certain number of research proposals this year. Now, I have a research idea that is not much more than an idea and a draft, we do not even have testbed partners for the evaluation of our idea. And the research partner will be on vacation the next two weeks. The deadline for the submission is 15th October. So, what alternatives do I have?
(a) To write the proposal all alone, what would have been feasible, as I write fast. But the consortium would be not very convincing and they would probably also not be convinced of what I wrote because they had no occasion for contributing their visions. Consequently, the probability of success would be low. I expect that the project either would not be funded or it would be funded but would shipwreck. However, I would have added one point to my proposal count.
(b) There will be another deadline for this programme next spring, so we can now take our time to discuss and find the right partners, and then submit half a year later. The idea is great, and we will probably be successful then in all respects. This is better for the company, but I will personally pay for having taken this decision. I will earn less money because of this.
A system that forces me to pay with my own salary for taking decisions that lead to a better success of my company, that is quite perverse. I believe that work life is such a complex system that conditions or criteria for success can not be expressed by a handful of key performance indicators (KPI). Such criteria indeed steer decisions, but this can go in the wrong direction, as in the example above. And I could tell more of these.
Of course, one could argue that I must have failed earlier, if two weeks before the deadline I realize that there is a problem. Well, I saw the problems approaching long time ago, but it was not in my hand to organize the consortium. There were several delays NOT caused by me; I did even worked on free days when it was my turn. That´s one unjust factor in this objective: The number of submitted research proposals does not depend on me alone, it is teamwork.
PS: The publication which I wrote about the effect of KPI is in German, see: Herrmann A (2009) Wie KPIs auf Entscheidungen wirken: ein explorativer Selbstversuch im Zeitmanagement. Metrikon 2009, Kaiserslautern, Germany
(a) To write the proposal all alone, what would have been feasible, as I write fast. But the consortium would be not very convincing and they would probably also not be convinced of what I wrote because they had no occasion for contributing their visions. Consequently, the probability of success would be low. I expect that the project either would not be funded or it would be funded but would shipwreck. However, I would have added one point to my proposal count.
(b) There will be another deadline for this programme next spring, so we can now take our time to discuss and find the right partners, and then submit half a year later. The idea is great, and we will probably be successful then in all respects. This is better for the company, but I will personally pay for having taken this decision. I will earn less money because of this.
A system that forces me to pay with my own salary for taking decisions that lead to a better success of my company, that is quite perverse. I believe that work life is such a complex system that conditions or criteria for success can not be expressed by a handful of key performance indicators (KPI). Such criteria indeed steer decisions, but this can go in the wrong direction, as in the example above. And I could tell more of these.
Of course, one could argue that I must have failed earlier, if two weeks before the deadline I realize that there is a problem. Well, I saw the problems approaching long time ago, but it was not in my hand to organize the consortium. There were several delays NOT caused by me; I did even worked on free days when it was my turn. That´s one unjust factor in this objective: The number of submitted research proposals does not depend on me alone, it is teamwork.
PS: The publication which I wrote about the effect of KPI is in German, see: Herrmann A (2009) Wie KPIs auf Entscheidungen wirken: ein explorativer Selbstversuch im Zeitmanagement. Metrikon 2009, Kaiserslautern, Germany
AndreaHerrmann - 1. Okt, 19:14
