Differentiate with Doable Decisions

New Year’s resolutions taught me about objectives. Here’s why.

“And what’s your New Year’s resolution?” asked my wife.

“I want 200% stronger!” I proudly announced.

“Didn’t you say that last year? What’re you going to do differently this year?” quizzed my wife.

“Err ... be more disciplined?” I speculated.

“Isn’t insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?” quipped my wife.

As my jaw dropped, something in my head clicked.

When setting organisational objectives, it’s too easy to fall into three traps.

Firstly, we too often frame “necessities as objectives”, as Ackoff suggests. “For example, ‘to achieve sufficient profit.’ This is like a person saying his mission is to breathe sufficiently.”

“[Objectives] should not commit a firm to what it must do in order to survive, but to what it chooses to do in order to thrive.”

“Simplifying our IT estate”, “attracting and retaining the best talent”, or “providing the best value for money” are necessities. Would we ever not do them?

So, doing what we would do anyway is not an objective.

Secondly, objectives should be achievable.

Reminds Deming, “A numerical goal accomplishes nothing. What counts is the method — by what method? If you can accomplish a goal without a method, then why were you not doing it last year? There is only one possible answer: you were goofing off.”

If our objective is to double sales this year, how do we intend to make it so? If we didn’t need a plan, it would’ve already happened.

So, “hopes without a method to achieve them will remain mere hopes.” (Deming)

Finally, objectives in “a company’s mission statement should help the company to differentiate itself”, suggests Ackoff.

As Youngme Moon remind us: “Most companies compare features with their competition to determine where they are weak, so they can strengthen those areas. Wrong. A better strategy is to concentrate on areas where they are stronger and to strengthen them even more. This causes the product to stand out from the mindless herd.”

As the Pepsi vs. Cola wars reminded us, we’re easily tempted into trying to beat competitors, rather than excelling in our own field.

So, “don’t follow blindly; focus on strengths, not weaknesses.” (Moon)

The takeaway? Objectives should focus on achievable choices that take your organisation to where it most needs to be. And, protein shakes aren’t a plan.

This article was inspired by Ackoff’s Management in Small Doses, Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, and Deming’s The New Economics. Quotes adapted for brevity.