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December 2009
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 I recently had to go to the hospital for an endoscopy (everything is tickety boo).
My appointment was for 2.15pm. At 2.20pm I was summoned into a little room and formally
‘admitted’ to the hospital. I signed lots of forms and was then returned to the
waiting room.
During the next hour and a half, whilst I continued to wait for my appointment,
I noticed a pattern emerging. Customers were ‘admitted’ to the hospital at, or very close to, their appointment time, and then returned, as I had been, for an indefinite
wait.
Now, call me cynical, but I wonder, was there some ‘target’ at work behind the scenes
here? Did the hospital score points for admitting patients on time and was a little
bit of jiggery pokery being used to obscure the actual waiting times?
It reminded me of a story I read many years ago about an airport that targeted baggage
handlers to
get the first piece of luggage to the carousel within so many minutes
of an airplane landing. The result: Lots of carousels with one solitary case going
round and round, and a target achieved.
Which just goes to show, when it comes to setting targets and objectives, managers
need to be careful what they wish for.
As trainers, when we’re teaching people the importance of using SMART objectives,
we also need to show them the risks of using them badly. SMART objectives need to
be balanced and checked to ensure they encourage the performance and behaviours
that are really sought. This is particularly important
if we’re planning on
directly linking reward to performance against objectives.
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