The Evil Of Goal Setting - Aditya Yadav

1. *
“Running an Agile Fortune 500 Company”
Aditya Yadav, aditya.yadav@gmail.com
in.linkedin.com/in/adityayadav76

2. * A Typical Global Company
* Fortune 500/1000
* 200 Divisions
* 40 Countries
* 25000 Employees
*

3. *
@ Acme Inc.

4. * Original Question “We need to set Stretch goals
to motivate, challenge and push our people
further. How do we cascade and align the goals
down the hierarchy the best way?”
* The Correct Question - “Goal Setting can be
very destructive to the Organization. Can we
think of better ways of Executing on our
Emergent Strategy?”
*

5. *
And The Philosophy Behind The Answer

6. *

7. * Come January - Its that time of the year when we set Big
Hairy Audacious Goals [BHAGs] for our Organization
* Every year we follow this Ritual, which we have been doing
since the Origin Of Time.
* And we will cascade it down to the last person in the
Organization
* The Aim will be to Align everyone from the top to the
Bottom. The assumption is that if we align well enough we
will successfully execute our Strategy.
* Goal Setting is the Foundational Pillar of how we do our
Business everything starts from there
* Your Organization follows “Management by Objectives” i.e.
basically The Outcome justifies the Means.
*

8. * The Organizational Cost of Setting Goals is too high,
to the extent of Organizational Self Cannibalism
[Autophagy]
* While Goal Setting might seem to make sense
* Irrespective of What Goals you set. Stretch or not
* There is no basis of Any Goals in Reality or
Rationality
* E.g. last year we did 200 so this year we will do
250. Why? How? At What Cost?
* This presentation outlines the neglected costs of
Goal Setting
*

9. * This is the world of Measurable Targets, Goals,
Metrics, KPI‟s, Measures, Dashboards, Reports
* Everything has to be precise and objective
* Everything has to be measurable and trackable (aka
Manageable)
* You heavily incentivize meeting that goal because
human beings don‟t do anything at all without
incentives
* You decompose a larger goal into smaller parts for
everyone down the hierarchy
* You set the Quarter or Year End as the Time Frame
*

10. * Every Archers Goal since he starts learning is to Hit the Bulls Eye „each
time everytime‟. By that logic every Archer in the world should be Apollo.
* Every parent (In India) tortures their kids all their lives and gives them the
Target of coming first in everything they do. We all know how that turns
out, the success rate and the costs.
* Goal Setting doesn‟t help in achieving the goals as a team. And no amount
of Alignment can solve that
* The Evolution of Strategy implies any Alignment even if it exists and works
temporally turns into perfect Dis-Alignment very soon
* It puts every individual, team and division in the company into a direct
conflict of interest with every other individual, team and division
*

11. * Everyone deprioritizes and suppresses every part of
the bigger goal they are not responsible for in an
effort to optimize the part that they are responsible
for
* Conversely if you try to solve that and make
everyone‟s goals to be increasingly comprehensive. It
is proven that nothing will be achieved anyway
* So either you will achieve nothing or you will achieve
something in parts by killing your organization
* Also if something cannot be articulated as a
measurable goal it will always be compromised the
first thing in the attempt to reach goals
*

12. * Cheating and Unethical Behavior, * Problems of Compliance and
* False Promises and Last Minute Regulations,
Betrayals * Immoral Behavior,
* Misrepresentation and
* Social Irresponsibility,
Miscommunication
* High and Disproportionate Risk Taking, * Environmental Damage,
* Compromises Security, * Myopic and Parasitic Behavior,
* Increases Shortcuts and Bypassing of * Specialization vs Macro Problem
Norms, Solving
* Complexity,
* Stress and Burn Out
* Violations of the Law,
* Managing Expectations than Maximizing
* Failure and Fear Of Failure
Success * Performance Degradation
* Mediocrity and Conspiracy to Lower * Slowness and Drop in Throughput
the Bar and Productivity
* Non-incentive to Surpass Goals
*

13. * Valuing only the „Outcome‟ * Organizational Learning and
and not Rewarding Behaviors, Adaptability,
Values, Principles and * Culture,
Philosophy leads to
extinction of * Intrinsic Motivation,
* Knowledge Sharing, * Trust
* Collaboration, * Value
* Team Work, * Reputation,
* Consensus, * Quality,
* Co-ordination * Reliability
* Innovation, * Passion
* Creativity, * Satisfaction & Engagement
* Introspection, * Experience
*

14. * Can you recognize such problems? …
* Across your Company,
* Or excessively in a particular Industry e.g. Finance.
* Or specific Functions e.g. Sales….
* Excessively Goal/Target/Incentive Driven? Ofcourse!
* Now you know the ONE origin of ALL those problems.
* Also Goal Setting makes Emergent Strategies virtually
impossible. Without which, your company has minimal
chances of Survival today.
* Moral: Don‟t Rejoice if Profits increase Temporally. Its only
happening by cannibalizing the entire Organization
*

15. * Set the „Direction‟ and „Do Your Best‟ not Goals
and Targets
* Management Minimalism
* Over communicate Values, Principles,
Philosophy and Direction
* Continuous Coaching
* Value Behavior rather than just Outcomes
* Beware: Of The Conspiracy of Mediocrity
*

16. Aditya!!!
*