I was playing a game of golf with an executive of an organization last summer.  His company was an advocate of using targets in management.  I had heard all the reasons in past debates.  His debates were:  They motivate people, they are good for setting direction (especially used when a manager fails to achieve the target), if reasonably set they help or if the people given the target help set it than it’s OK.  He believed that incentives would allow his people to achieve any target and his company was full of them to prove it.

I would counter that targets when wrongly set would sub-optimize the system, frustrate the worker, that workers will work to the target and then stop, knowing whether a measure needs to go up or down is good enough because with a target we may never know what a system is capable of achieving.  We had talked about the problems of incentives with the cheating and frustration that happens in organizations.  Ultimately, all my systems thinking knowledge wasn’t going to change his mind and I have learned that change comes from curiosity.  Curiosity about making a company better through business improvement methods (not tools or targets) that call out scientific management theory as making systems worse.

As we stepped up on the first tee, I told the executive that I would pay him $200 if he would shoot par 72 (a clear target and incentive).  I knew he had never broken 90, so I felt safe.  He laughed it off.  By the 7th green, he was 8 over par . . . I told him he wasn’t trying hard enough and offered $500 if he broke 80.  I badgered him the rest of the way with new targets and incentives until frustrated he begged me to stop.  I replied “now you know what it is like to work for your company.”

I don’t know if this command and control thinker will be curious enough to change, but I hope that our encounter at least gives him pause.  Stay tuned!