82,387
edits
Goals: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 29: | Line 29: | ||
Why should goals be “[[SMART]]”? It is not for your benefit, but so that the [[All watched over by machines of loving grace|Machines of Loving Grace that watch over us]] can understand. Your contribution to the betterment of the organisation is ineffable, indescribable and unpredictable. Now, readers: usually, I say things like this with an air of irony: not here. It is true your contribution may not amount to anything much — many of us (probably most) are more trouble than we are worth — but the things that we do which ''do'' make a difference are, in the abstract, ''profoundly hard to judge'', especially from the perspective of [[human resources]]. | Why should goals be “[[SMART]]”? It is not for your benefit, but so that the [[All watched over by machines of loving grace|Machines of Loving Grace that watch over us]] can understand. Your contribution to the betterment of the organisation is ineffable, indescribable and unpredictable. Now, readers: usually, I say things like this with an air of irony: not here. It is true your contribution may not amount to anything much — many of us (probably most) are more trouble than we are worth — but the things that we do which ''do'' make a difference are, in the abstract, ''profoundly hard to judge'', especially from the perspective of [[human resources]]. | ||
So [[SMART]] goals — especially the specific, measurable and actionable part — is not about making life easy for ''you'' but making evaluation easy for ''The Man''. Your performance must be, in {{author|James C. Scott}}’s clever phrase, “[[legible]]”. Literally, ''[[machine-readable]]''. What The Man cannot see yields you no credit: this is like a dark inversion of Terry’s maxim: [[what the eye don’t see the chef gets away with]]. All that ''ad hoc'' mentoring you did; that moment of insight, in the heat of the deal, that took ten percent out of the operating costs of the project; those times you patiently covered for an AWOL colleague to make sure the project happened; your immaculate drafting that rendered that complex issue plain for the business — | So [[SMART]] goals — especially the specific, measurable and actionable part — is not about making life easy for ''you'' but making evaluation easy for ''The Man''. Your performance must be, in {{author|James C. Scott}}’s clever phrase, “[[legible]]”. Literally, ''[[machine-readable]]''. What The Man cannot see yields you no credit: this is like a dark inversion of Terry’s maxim: [[what the eye don’t see the chef gets away with|what the eye don’t see, the chef gets away with]]. | ||
All that ''ad hoc'' mentoring you did; that moment of insight, in the heat of the deal, that took ten percent out of the operating costs of the project; those times you patiently covered for an AWOL colleague to make sure the project happened; your immaculate drafting that rendered that complex issue plain for the business — was any of ''that'' a SMART objective? Will it bear on your appraisal? If rendered in terms of SMART goals, no, because ''no-one can anticipate it, and no-one can see it''. | |||
But did you complete your [[netting opinion]] reviews on time and to budget? Why yes, counsellor, you ''did''! | |||
Why should your target be ''measurable'', other than because the institution bearing down on you needs some way of assessing it in a binary way? But (again, following James Scott’s reasoning) these SMART goals then create perverse incentives, for employees know they are measured and rated only what can be read, so deprioritise “illegible” good behaviour, in favour of measurable [[box-ticking]]. | |||
===Or systems?=== | ===Or systems?=== | ||
| Line 36: | Line 42: | ||
But what would [[HR]] do? | But what would [[HR]] do? | ||
General rule: ''Don’t do what HR would do.''{{sa}} | |||
{{sa}} | |||
*[[Performance conversation]] | *[[Performance conversation]] | ||
*[http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6114.html Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goals Setting] (Harvard Business School) | *[http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6114.html Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goals Setting] (Harvard Business School) | ||
*{{br|How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big}} — Scott Adams | *{{br|How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big}} — Scott Adams | ||