I Despise Goals!

Yes it's about semantics. And ridiculous expectations. And out-of-touch-with-reality managers. And corporate. And I state that with every ounce of conviction that I can muster like the big ugly wad of gum stuck on your shoe that it is. And it's about lack of achievement. And crutches for managers. And reasons to not engage. And big ole hockin' stomach aches.

The gurus say you must have goals and grade to those goals. So those of us who secretly disagree with the whole notion, keep to ourselves. I was recently talking to a twenty plus year ex-manager and she told me that she HATES goals. I was shocked. Did I mention that she was an extremely successful manager? It turns out she just did to her corporate manager what most teenagers do to their parents. "Yes mom, yes mom, yes mom." They did the goal thing on paper and then she went about working with her coworkers in ways that produced excellent results. I believe that the physical description of this event involves taking one's hand and sliding it up and down a fictitious pole.

I do not disagree with the practice of setting a target and then striving for it. There's just so much muckety-muck slimed around the practice of what is known as goal setting and in most cases the inevitable failure to achieve such goals, that I think a change in both terminology and view are in order.

Marcus says that most people don't change much. I agree. I don't however, have the time, energy and evangelistic characteristics needed to mount a crusade. So all you folks out there who are goalies, no sweat, keep on keepin' on with your goals. I am more interested in folks like the young ex-manager above who despises goals. 

How deep-seeded have this woman's sentiments run? Well I've known her since 1974, married her in 1977 and produced offspring with her in 1981 and 1992, and I never knew she despised goals. For one stretch of twenty years when we were both managers at the same time, we spoke every single day after work, about all things management. I think the whole goal-crap thing is burnt so deep by corporate and the gurus into our neural pathways, that we have become desensitized to it...kinda like going to the bathroom. Given our druthers we'd rather not do it, but its part of human nature so we just do what we have to do.

I'll follow up this post with some different ideas in terminology and viewpoints.

Comments

[Skip Reardon]

Good one Dave! Agreed: the bad part about goals is that it's a whole lot more fun to do what we WANT to do, rather than what we SHOULD do. However, if we only did what we WANTED to do rather that what we SHOULD do, we'd be in a world of hurt....

[dave]

Man Skip, you hit it right on the head! I would like to offer a viewpoint where doing the should will be something we want...

[Dick Richards]

I can't quite put my finger in the why of it, but this post brought to mind Yoda. "Do. Or do not. There is no try." Nice one Dave.

[dave]

Thanks Dick! Do is most relevant to ideas that I have here.