Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta objectivos. Mostrar todas as mensagens
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta objectivos. Mostrar todas as mensagens

sexta-feira, novembro 10, 2023

Acerca da análise SWOT

Ontem li "It's Time to Toss SWOT Analysis into the Ashbin of Strategy History" e fiquei com uma sensação estranha. 

Concordo e não concordo com o autor. Julgo que é outra vez a estória da culpa ser da caneta e não de quem a usa também referida aqui.

Concordo quando ele refere:

"I am tired of reading SWOT analyses. [Moi ici: Eu também, o meu detector da treta está sempre a apitar]

...

Who can tell me a blinding insight that came out of any such SWOT analysis? [Moi ici: O que levanta a questão sobre para que fim é a SWOT usada?]

...

Consider the strengths analysis. To be able to analyze one’s strengths, one has to have a definition of what is contained in the category ‘strengths’ and a way of measuring whatever is included. But a strength is only a strength in the context of a particular Where-to-Play/How-to-Win (WTP/HTW) choice. [Moi ici: O mesmo se pode dizer das fraquezas, o que me leva a este postal "Assim, partem já derrotados" de 2015. Usar uma SWOT para desenvolver uma estratégia, é pôr o carro à frente dos bois. Primeiro é preciso ter uma estratégia que contextualize o que são forças, fraquezas, oportunidades e ameaças]

...

The superior approach is to perform an analysis only when you are clear on the specific purpose so that you can go a mile deep and an inch wide. That means you don’t do it up front as with the SWOT and you don’t attempt to make it excessively broad like the four-pronged SWOT. [Moi ici: Confesso que só cheguei a isto depois de desesperar com tantas análises de contexto, de acordo com a ISO 9001 e a ISO 14001, que não passam de pura perda de tempo. Por que é que se há-de competir por criar a maior lista possível de factores interos e externos? Recordo Running away from a plain and hard brainstorming (part Il)]

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Start by defining the strategy problem you are seeking to solve. That is, what is the gap between your aspirations and the outcomes you are seeking. Then specify the form of the solution by way of a ‘how might we’ question. That is, how might we eliminate the identified gap that we currently face. Then imagine possibilities of WTP/HTW choices that have the potential of answering the how might we question to eliminate the gap between aspirations and outcomes."

Quando eu era criança usava a SWOT como criança. Agora que sou mais velho uso-a mas de forma muito diferente.

  1. Formular uma estratégia.
  2. Traduzir a estratégia num conjunto de objectivos.
  3. Determinar que factores do contexto interno e externo são relevantes para o cumprimento dos objectivos (daí o título Running away from a plain and hard brainstorming (part Il) não se trata de um brainstorming livre, mas condicionado ao que pode afectar cada um dos objectivos.
  4. Classificar os factores internos e externos em vectores positivos ou negativos e traduzi-los para Forças, Fraquezas, Oportunidades e Ameaças.
  5. Usar a SWOT para criar uma TOWS
  6. Usar a TOWS para identificar riscos e oportunidades no caminho para cumprir os objectivos.


terça-feira, maio 03, 2022

Objectivos ambiciosos

Ontem escrevemos sobre a frequência de monitorização  dos objectivos. Hoje, um tema que, quando o li, logo me fez recordar algumas pessoas que fui conhecendo ao longo dos anos e, que tinham pavor de não cumprir todos os objectivos:

"A core tenet of the SMART framework is that goals should be achievable and realistic. Several recent articles have argued against stretch goals and recommended incremental targets instead. The widespread practice of requiring employees to achieve 100% of their goals to earn a bonus or a positive performance review reinforces employees' tendency to set conservative goals that they are sure to achieve.

The temptation to play it safe when setting goals is understandable but often misguided.

...

Ambitious goals minimize the risk that employees will sandbag by committing to overly conservative goals they are sure to achieve. The typical image of sandbagging is a sales representative setting a goal of $1 million when he is confident he could sell twice that amount. Sandbagging, however, manifests itself in more insidious ways that undermine experimentation and learning. When bonuses are tied to hitting targets, employees may opt for cost-reduction initiatives that are fully under their control, as opposed to growing sales, which depends on the actions of customers, partners, and competitors. Or they might attempt to wring incremental improvements out of existing products or business models rather than pursue a novel technology that offers a higher payoff in the long run. When the gap between the goals being set and current reality is wide, organizations need to search for creative or innovative ways to achieve their ambitious, overall objectives. Insisting that employees achieve 100% of their goals, in contrast, can also deter employees from the trial-and-error experimentation required to innovate.

When it comes to setting goals, more ambition is not always better at some point, the objectives enter the realm of delusion. Striking the balance between ambition and achievability is a difficult but essential task for leaders at every level in an organization.

...

How can leaders inspire people to set more ambitious goals? In Silicon Valley many companies encourage employees to set goals that they are unlikely to achieve in full. Google, for example, expects employees to achieve an average of 60% to 70% of their key results. In the eyes of Google executives, asking for more would prevent employees from thinking big enough when setting their objectives."

Trechos retirados de "With Goals, FAST Beats SMART", publicado no MIT Sloan Management Review.

segunda-feira, maio 02, 2022

Frequência de monitorização

Trecho retirado de "Reviewing the Annual Review" publicado no WSJ do passado dia 30 de Abril: 

"For millions, the annual performance review is akin to going to a bad dentist: Before you go, you dread it; while you're there, it's painful; after it's done, nothing's fixed. Gartner data shows that 81% of companies are considering redesigning their performance-management systems with the addition of more frequent "touchpoints." 
...
The failings of the annual performance review fall into three broad buckets:
They are too infrequent. They are dehumanizing. They are irrelevant to real-world performance."

Como auditor vejo muitos sistemas de gestão com indicadores irrelevantes e medidos de forma demasiado infrequente.

Em linha com o que li num outro artigo, "With Goals, FAST Beats SMART", publicado no MIT Sloan Management Review:

"To execute strategy, leaders must set ambitious targets, translate them into specific metrics and milestones, make them transparent throughout the organization, and discuss progress frequently.

...

When it comes to setting goals, most managers follow a well-established set of practices. They hold one-on-one meetings with their subordinates to set goals, and then they review performance against those objectives at year end and link their appraisal to promotion and bonus decisions. These same managers aspire to make their goals SMART, by ensuring they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.

...

We found that four core principles underpin effective goal systems, and we summarize these elements with the acronym FAST. (See "Make Goals FAST, Not SMART.") Goals should be embedded in frequent discussions; ambitious in scope; measured by specific metrics and milestones; and transparent for everyone in the organization to see.

"When we ask managers how often they look at their goals, most say twice per year once when they set their objectives and again when they write up their performance selfappraisal.

...

Even the most finely crafted objectives will have little impact if they are filed away for 363 days of the year. To drive strategy execution, goals should serve as a framework that guides key decisions and activities throughout the year. One way to make goals more relevant is to set them quarterly rather than annually quadrupling the number of times teams evaluate progress, discuss unexpected challenges, and make real-time adjustments."

domingo, março 06, 2022

Medo de falhar?

Há tempos encontrei numa empresa esta metodologia para definir indicadores.

Ao estabelecer como objectivo para o ano seguinte o desempenho médio do ano anterior:
  • a prática pode levar a uma evolução lenta, ou até mesmo a uma estagnação no desempenho;
  • não há necessidade de um plano de melhoria;
Se escolhermos indicadores relevantes, faz sentido estabelecer objectivos de melhoria real e desenvolver planos deliberados para alterar a realidade. Não há que ter medo de desenvolver indicadores exigentes e ficar a metade do caminho.







quinta-feira, novembro 12, 2020

"Stretching goals"

"there is something galvanizing and inspirational about a big stretch goal, as President John F. Kennedy knew in 1961, when he announced that the United States would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, even though the longest time any American had spent in space was barely 15 minutes.

The business leader’s job is to set an ambitious target that will bring out the best in a company’s teams and achieve what may seem impossible at first. ... We’re often capable of more than we know, and an outlandish target that prompts gulps at first can inspire a team to focus on how it can be achieved.

“Our job as managers and leaders is to instill the belief that whatever core mission you’re pursuing is possible and valuable,”

...

You can either create a circumstance where you build this positive vortex where everything right out of the gate is leading you toward more and more success, where you’re more motivated to not miss, or you can become trapped in what I call a cyclone of doom. And they start with these very small, seemingly innocuous decisions almost out of the gate and then they build on one another. So, you’re either heading down or you’re heading up.”

Amid the pandemic, there are countless cyclones of doom. The challenge for leaders is to create a positive vortex. It is as simple — and as hard — as that."

Trechos retirados de "Stretch or safe? The art of setting goals for your teams

domingo, maio 31, 2020

Que objectivos para uma auditoria?

Ontem ao procurar informação sobre um tema relacionado com auditorias fui a um dos livros que tenho em minha posse há mais tempo sobre o tema, "Quality Audits for Improved Performance" de Dennis Arter. A certa altura encontro este exemplo para um objectivo de uma auditoria:
1 - "Determine whether the corrective action procedure conform to aerospace industry quality program requirements, and wheter they are effectively implemented in the production of adhesive compounds"
E recordei uma velha luta minha... sistemas da qualidade maduros deveriam concentrar-se mais na eficácia, no desempenho, do que na conformidade. E comecei a desenhar um objectivo de auditoria alternativo:
2 - "Determine whether the corrective action procedure help the organization in developing and implementing corrective actions with sound impact on results, on improvement"
A versão 1 foca-se na verificação da conformidade. A versão 2 não refere a conformidade, para uma empresa com um sistema de gestão da qualidade maduro isso não é prioritário. O que é prioritário é ser capaz de responder à pergunta: até que ponto o procedimento de acções correctivas ajuda a empresa a conseguir resultados. Quantos euros se pouparam? Quantos eventos negativos se evitaram? Quantos minutos foram ganhos? Quantos clientes não foram perdidos?

A versão 1 copia os objectivos de auditoria das entidades certificadoras, a versão 1 faz todo o sentido para quem está a implementar um sistema de gestão a partir do zero.

A versão 1 é tanto menos útil quanto mais maduro for o sistema de gestão. Quem compra livros de auditorias e frequenta acções de formação está a montar sistemas a partir do zero.

Pouca gente evolui para a versão 2. Ou porque não pensa sobre o tema, ou porque não valoriza o potencial de uma auditoria, ou porque tem receio de partir o molde em que foi enformada.

segunda-feira, outubro 28, 2019

O ambicioso versus o desejoso (parte II)

Parte I.
"I've seldom met a successful person who didn't start out with a set of ambitious goals. However, the power of goal-setting isn't just anecdotal. It turns out that there's a wealth of scientific research into how goal-setting changes the way you brain functions. That research also provides guidance on how to make goal-setting vastly more effective.
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Here's the gist: Goal-setting restructures your brain to make it more effective.
...
goals that are highly emotional (i.e., the subject is highly motivated to succeed) cause participants to downwardly evaluate the difficulty of achieving that goal.
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In other words, if you strongly desire a goal, your brain will perceive obstacles as less significant than they might otherwise appear.
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Research has also shown that ambitious goals are far more motivating (i.e. they more thorougly structure your brain) than easily achieved goals.
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In other words, if you want to fully activate your amygdala and frontal lobe so that your brain makes you more successful, you must set challenging goals.
...
In 90% of the studies, specific and challenging goals led to higher performance than easy goals, "do your best" goals, or no goals. Goals affect performance by directing attention, mobilizing effort, increasing persistence, and motivating strategy development. Goal setting is most likely to improve task performance when the goals are specific and sufficiently challenging."
Trechos retirados de "What Goal-Setting Does to Your Brain and Why It's Spectacularly Effective"


domingo, outubro 27, 2019

O ambicioso versus o desejoso (parte I)

Esta semana ouvi Joaquim Aguiar falar na diferença entre o ambicioso e o desejoso.

O ambicioso treina para atingir o objectivo. O desejoso senta-se à espera que o objectivo lhe caia no regaço. Os políticos adoram desejosos. Assim, especializam-se na distribuição de rebuçados.
"lays out the seven-step approach SEALs use to tackle even the most daunting missions, so you can adapt it to achieve your own biggest, scariest goals.
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1. Ask clarifying questions..
Clearly, in military situations it's essential to be clear about your objective, both so you don't capture the wrong guy and know what winning looks like. But in civilian life, too, it's impossible to achieve success if you don't define it first.
...
2. Identify all your resources..
The next step is to marshal all your resources and see what you have to work with to achieve your aim. That means not only material resources like money and technology, but also intangible ones like your network and skills.
...
3. Clarify roles and responsibilities....
make sure each person knows their role, ... what each must accomplish, and when. ... it's essential to make sure everyone understands their area of responsibility and how it fits into the larger mission.
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4. Focus relentlessly on your goal..
As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has explained, all good leaders take responsibility for outcomes, whatever the circumstances. [Moi ici: Recordar aquiFor true leaders, there is no such thing as an excuse, because they always keep their focus on the goal and look for ways around each constraint.
...
5. Think through all possible contingencies..
In practice, this means letting your pessimistic imagination run wild to dream up every hiccup and holdup you might face. How can you work around these possibilities? [Moi ici: A aplicação da abordagem baseada no risco]
...
6. Train until you're stress-proof..
OK, you know your aim, you've assigned your roles, and you've talked through everything that could go wrong. Your planning is ace, but there's another essential step to making sure your paper plan actually translates to real life.
...
7. After-action review..
Reached your goal? Congrats, but there's still one final step left to go. "You do yourself and the people in the room or the people in the organization a disservice if you don't debrief what happened or where the mistakes are at," Roy concludes. This isn't about assigning blame to people. It's about figuring out what went wrong so you can do better next time."
Trechos retirados de "Navy SEALs Use This 7-Step Process to Achieve Any Goal. You Can Too"

quarta-feira, junho 12, 2019

Motivação

"Design Goals, Not Chores
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Ample research has documented the importance of goal setting. Studies have shown, for example, that when salespeople have targets, they close more deals, and that when individuals make daily exercise commitments, they’re more likely to increase their fitness levels. Abstract ambitions—such as “doing your best”—are usually much less effective than something concrete, such as bringing in 10 new customers a month or walking 10,000 steps a day. As a first general rule, then, any objectives you set for yourself or agree to should be specific.
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Find Effective Rewards
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Some tasks or even stretches of a career are entirely onerous—in which case it can be helpful to create external motivators for yourself over the short- to-medium term, especially if they complement incentives offered by your organization.
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Sustain Progress
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When people are working toward a goal, they typically have a burst of motivation early and then slump in the middle, where they are most likely to stall out."

Trechos retirados de "How to Keep Working When You’re Just Not Feeling It"

segunda-feira, maio 27, 2019

Desafios

"When setting team goals, many managers feel that they must maintain a tricky balance between setting targets high enough to achieve impressive results and setting them low enough to keep the troops happy. But the assumption that employees are more likely to welcome lower goals doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. In fact, our research indicates that in some situations people perceive higher goals as easier to attain than lower ones — and even when that’s not the case, they still can find those more challenging goals more appealing."
Trecho retirado de "Why You Should Stop Setting Easy Goals"

quinta-feira, abril 04, 2019

"Why Hypotheses Beat Goals"

"companies should focus organizational energy on hypothesis generation and testing. Hypotheses force individuals to articulate in advance why they believe a given course of action will succeed. A failure then exposes an incorrect hypothesis — which can more reliably convert into organizational learning.
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A hypothesis emerges from a set of underlying assumptions. It is an articulation of how those assumptions are expected to play out in a given context. In short, a hypothesis is an intelligent, articulated guess that is the basis for taking action and assessing outcomes.
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Hypothesis generation in companies becomes powerful if people are forced to articulate and justify their assumptions. It makes the path from hypothesis to expected outcomes clear enough that, should the anticipated outcomes fail to materialize, people will agree that the hypothesis was faulty.
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Building a culture of effective hypothesizing can lead to more thoughtful actions and a better understanding of outcomes. Not only will failures be more likely to lead to future successes, but successes will foster future successes."
Aposto que o meu colega das conversas oxigenadoras vai apreciar a técnica usada pela cadeia de lojas japonesas Seven-Eleven Japan:
"Each week, Seven-Eleven Japan counselors visited the stores and asked salesclerks three questions:
  • What did you hypothesize this week? (That is, what did you order?)
  • How did you do? (That is, did you sell what you ordered?)
  • How will you do better next week? (That is, how will you incorporate the learning?)
By repeatedly asking these questions and checking the data for results, counselors helped people throughout the company hypothesize, test, and learn. The result was consistently strong inventory turnover and profitability."
Trechos retirados de "Why Hypotheses Beat Goals"

quinta-feira, janeiro 17, 2019

Dar a volta (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.
"If you set ambitious goals before you know who are, you will almost always end up in a place where you don't fit.
...
Without self-awareness, goal-setting puts you on a treadmill, achieving goal after goal, but continually asking: "Is this all there is?"
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It's not that goal-setting doesn't work; it's just that many, if not most, people lack the self-awareness to select appropriate goals. Therefore, before setting goals, learn to listen to the "small, still voice" that tells you who you really are."
Quando é preciso dar a volta, muitas vezes impõe-se o corte daquilo que seguramente já não é futuro, daquilo que já é passado. Antes de começar a lançar objectivos para o Capítulo II (ver parte II desta série), por vezes há que dar tempo ao tempo para perceber qual a "next big thing". Os objectivos do Capítulo II vão depender da estratégia para dar a volta.

Trechos retirados de "Goal Setting Is Highly Over-Rated"

quarta-feira, janeiro 02, 2019

FAST vs SMART

Muitas vezes, demasiadas vezes, as empresas que se comprometem com objectivos, como as que têm um sistema de gestão da qualidade, estabelecem frequências de monitorização semestrais e até mesmo anuais.

Torço sempre o nariz a estas frequências, sinónimo da pouca importância dos objectivos ou da crença na gestão através de objectivos.

Por isso, é interessante sublinhar o "Frequently discussed":

"According to conventional wisdom, goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. But SMART goals undervalue ambition, focus narrowly on individual performance, and ignore the importance of discussing goals throughout the year. To drive strategy execution, leaders should instead set goals that are FAST — frequently discussed, ambitious, specific, and transparent.
...
Discuss Goals FrequentlyWhen we ask managers how often they look at their goals, most say twice per year — once when they set their objectives and again when they write up their performance self-appraisal. For many organizations, goal setting is an annual ritual that begins with a one-on-one meeting between an employee and his or her boss to agree on objectives for the year. Employees dutifully enter their goals into a spreadsheet or performance management tool, and largely forget about them until year end. Come December, they revisit their objectives and are often surprised by the tenuous relationship between their stated goals and what they actually did in the meantime.
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Even the most finely crafted objectives will have little impact if they are filed away for 363 days of the year. To drive strategy execution, goals should serve as a framework that guides key decisions and activities throughout the year. One way to make goals more relevant is to set them quarterly rather than annually — quadrupling the number of times teams evaluate progress, discuss unexpected challenges, and make real-time adjustments. We have found that companies in dynamic sectors (for example, media and information technology) often use quarterly goals, while companies in more stable industries tend to set annual goals."
Trechos retirados de "With Goals, FAST Beats SMART"








terça-feira, dezembro 18, 2018

"When you pay attention to the outcomes that produce results"

Um trecho a merecer reflexão:
"Because there are outcomes that occur all along the path to results, the outcomes are worth noticing and appreciating. Each outcome that results in progress are worth planning and executing well because they are important—and often critical—to producing results. When you pay attention to the outcomes that produce results, you increase the likelihood of producing those results."
Como não recordar a obliquidade.
Há desafios que queremos atingir (results), mas que não podemos eleger como objectivos directos, terão de ser consequência de outros objectivos (outcomes).

Trecho retirado de "Underestimating Progress"

segunda-feira, julho 16, 2018

“activity trap”

Ontem, escrevi:
"Volta e meia recordo o que aprendi há muitos anos sobre o como as organizações da administração pública definem objectivos. Numa empresa define-se o objectivo de atingir X euros de vendas no final do ano. Na organização pública-tipo dirão: "Não podemos controlar a vontade de quem está fora da organização, não podemos ter um objectivo desses". Numa empresa com o ADN de organização pública-tipo adoptariam o objectivo "número de visitas comerciais feitas". Percebem a diferença? Por isso, é que a administração pública está cheia de relatórios de actividades e quase não se vêem objectivos relacionados com eficácia. Recordo "Mais um monumento à treta - parte II"..Talvez esta mentalidade ajude a perceber "Blahblah economia do mar blahblah""
Depois, quando fui fazer uma caminhada matinal, enquanto deparava com isto:


Lia:
“Andy Grove’s quantum leap was to apply manufacturing production principles to the “soft professions,” the administrative, professional, and managerial ranks. He sought to “create an environment that values and emphasizes output” and to avoid what Drucker termed the “activity trap”: “[S]tressing output is the key to increasing productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.”

Excerto de: Doerr, John. “Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs”

terça-feira, fevereiro 06, 2018

Objectivos e indicadores

Para um fã do balanced scorecard isto não podia passar despercebido
"Setting goals is critical. Goals provide direction, help you focus, prioritize your time and energy, and ensure that you can objectively prove you've advanced the company's agenda.
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But just any goal won't do. Research shows that goals are not only important but also that the level of specificity and difficulty matters. Goals that are both clear and challenging drive higher levels of performance.
...
Objectives are the "big picture." They answer the questions "Where do we want to go?" and "What do we want to do?" Also, objectives are where Google encourages its employees to stretch themselves, be ambitious, and embrace uncertainty. If you don't get nervous or feel a little uncomfortable after setting a goal, then you haven't reached high enough.
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Key results should answer the question, "How will we gauge ourselves to see If we're getting there?" They should focus on making the objective achievable and quantifiable, and lead to unbiased grading..
Google suggests three key results per objective. Key results, per Google, "express measurable milestones which, if achieved, will directly advance the objective.
...
When writing key results, make sure that you're describing desired outcomes not just listing a bunch of action steps.[Moi ici: Recordar a praga dos Planos de Actividades]
...
Consider making objectives visible to the entire organization. Google includes everyone's goals on their internal directory. I love this idea. I'm sure that by being transparent, teams uncover synergistic objectives that lead to increased collaboration. Also, if I'm being honest, I would be much more motivated to write great goals if I knew that the whole company would see them."
Trechos retirados de "Everyone Hates Setting Goals. Here's How Google Makes It Easier for Its Employees"

sábado, janeiro 06, 2018

Para reflexão

"To effectively set goals for yourself, first you have to understand why you didn't achieve the goals you had previously set."

Trecho retirado de "If You Prioritize Your 2018 Goals This Way, You'll Reach Every Single One of Them"

terça-feira, novembro 28, 2017

O todo não é igual à soma das partes

Por que é que continuo a ver cada vez mais empresas com um sistema de gestão da qualidade certificado, segundo os requisitos decorrentes da ISO 9001:2015, em que as empresas consideram como objectivos da qualidade, como objectivos máximos do seu sistema, o somatório dos objectivos associados a cada um dos processos?

De onde veio esta ideia absurda de pensar que o todo é igual à soma das partes?

De onde veio esta ideia absurda de pensar que todos os processos são iguais e que não existe diferença no contributo de cada um para a execução da estratégia?

Muita gente precisa de aprender o que é a obliquidade.

segunda-feira, agosto 28, 2017

Pessoas, não saem de linhas de montagem

No final de Julho numa empresa, perguntaram-me se eu estava de acordo com a prática que seguem de estabelecer objectivos ambiciosos face ao ano anterior.

A minha resposta foi qualquer coisa do tipo: o que vejo são resultados para 2017 abaixo das metas mas muito melhores que os de 2016.  Assim, talvez seja de concluir que a vossa prática resulta. Pelo menos convosco resulta.

Entretanto, encontrei e li "Stretch Goals and the Distribution of Organizational Performance" de Michael Shayne Gary, Miles M. Yang, Philip W. Yetton e John D. Sterman, publicado online pela revista Organization Science em Maio de 2017. O artigo é um bocado estranho. Por exemplo:
"Second, instead of being evidence that organizations should adopt stretch goals, the small number of successful cases held up as exemplars for the benefits of stretch goals is evidence that stretch goals are not a rule for riches for all organizations.
...
Third, the findings inform the issue of setting appropriate goals for specific contexts. In particular, the results show that whether boards or top management should impose stretch goals on their organization depends on their attitudes toward risk. Those with large appetites for risk may still prefer stretch goals. However, for those who are risk neutral or risk averse, stretch goals may not be desirable because the increase in performance variance—including the risk of failure—and the lower risk-adjusted return achieved by the typical organization outweigh the chances for improvement achieved by a few successful high performers.
...
Preference for stretch versus moderate goals may also be contingent on the nature of the market. In markets characterized by reinforcing feedbacks, such as increasing returns, that lead to winner-take-all dynamics, stretch goals may prove the only path to success: firms must “go for broke or die trying.” However, in markets where multiple firms can coexist, the risks of failure due to stretch goals may dominate, and the watchword should be “live and let live.”
These arguments show how the appropriate goal difficulty level depends on the context."
Quase que apetece dizer: Duh!

 Ao longo de 30 anos de experiência a trabalhar com muitas empresas, como cliente, como fornecedor e sobretudo como consultor, sempre tenho encontrado muita variabilidade de empresa para empresa. Julgo que a maior fonte de variabilidade reside nos recursos humanos. Há empresas com que trabalho num dia, em que nunca proporia certas práticas de gestão que recomendei a outras no dia anterior. Diferentes pessoas, diferentes arcaboiços psicológicos, diferentes objectivos pessoais e profissionais, diferentes níveis de abstracção. Em cada caso há que procurar co-descobrir o que é que faz mais sentido para cada uma dessas empresas no contexto particular em que operam.