Management by Objectives Explained

Companies are more likely to suffer from a weakness in the implementation of a strategy than from an error in its design.

To develop a company, a manager sets himself a strategy, determining ( more or less formally ) a final goal, objectives, allocation of available or future resources and a road book containing the headings to be followed and The steps to be taken.

The purpose of this piece is not to explain, criticize or defend the theory of management by objective process, particularly formalized by Peter Drucker in the 1950s, but rather to explain to managers and team leaders the interest of applying management by objective to successfully implement the strategy set.

The Place Of Objective And Management In The Company

Once established, a strategy has several objectives, the difficulty then becomes to move from global objectives to concrete objectives that will be taken care of by the employees. Goals become tailor-made steps for each team to work in a tailored, orderly and convergent way towards the main objectives.

To transform the main axes of its strategy into multiple daily actions and decisions taken by diverse players, the manager relies on the management of his team leaders. They must:

·         Assimilate the strategy 

·         Take charge of the objectives specific to their field of activity

·         Animate their employees with a management aimed at translating the objectives into action plans and concrete indicators

How Can We Detect That There Are Difficulties In Implementing A Strategy?

The company is initially made up of men and women who only seek to make it work. Listening to its staff makes it possible to give an account of the way left to go in order to have an efficient management by objectives. If during a conversation you hear the following reflections:

·         A strategy, what strategy?

·         We do not know what they want, we do not understand their management ...

·         In any case everything is a priority,

·         Those of the siege would do well to come and see how it happens in reality,

·         But this decision is absolutely not coherent,

·         This cannot work,

·         It is always the same, here it is the dictatorship of the short term,

·         We throw lots of actions without going to the end,

·         One nail drives out another.

When a management is not adapted, the company often encounters the following difficulties:

·         The strategy is poorly understood, the priorities are not perceived, which creates a lack of convergence of the efforts of each one.

·         There are problems with communication, sharing of objectives and adherence to the project.

·         The declination of objectives is partial, it involves only part of the company.

·         Due to a lack of consultation, the objectives of some services go in different directions or have a poorly coordinated timing.

·         Objectives are deemed unrealistic by supervisors and / or field teams.

·         Some goals may not match the company's priorities.

·         Good negotiators manage to achieve "comfort goals".

·         The deployment method is inefficient because it is poorly structured.

·         Implementations are not efficient (meeting, some missions are duplicated, some managers have overlapping missions,

·         We feel stress, binge, or abandonment of mission.

Ultimately the major objectives of the corporate strategy are not achieved causing the company to fall behind in different areas.

Management By Objectives implementation

Management by objectives is not a raw method that applies with a manual. It is more a state of mind that relies on a few basic ideas that it is appropriate for each manager to adapt and implement according to his own management or operating mode:

1.      First, it is necessary to ensure that all activities are concerned by the concept of objectives. It is indeed difficult to ask a part of the company to take responsibility for achieving objectives while another party continues to operate with a logic of using means provided to it.

2.      If it can be initiated by the management, the participate management requires the support of the entire management team. It is therefore necessary to integrate them into the reflection on the implementation of the strategy, the deployment of the objectives and the action plans to achieve them.

3.      The management approach by objective is a whole, it is difficult to implement it by parts. We are responsible for all our teams on all subjects or we do not. It is therefore necessary to ensure that all the activities of the company have been integrated into the process and can be measured in order to be able to be the object of objectives.

The boundaries Of Management By Objectives

The management of a team is not limited to a management by objectives. The manager spends time solving various technical, human, organizational, logistical problems ... He faces unexpected events, his strength lies in his ability to integrate objectives into this functioning, but sometimes management priorities can Not on other priorities that are well integrated.

The many changing situations do not always support the implementation of management by objectives. In a fast-paced economic world, the truths of a day will no longer be those of tomorrow and it is sometimes necessary to agree to profoundly modify the objectives set a few months earlier because they suddenly prove to be unsuited to the situation.