Do we always need targets to excel?
November to February is that time of the year when senior management within a business vertical is hinted about business expectations for the next financial year. Strong rumours float on the work floor about possible numbers. Rumours become reality — Reality become confirmed targets. Targets are then translated into top line and bottom line commitments and then presented to team managers for their buy-ins in a beautifully camouflaged event called “Budgeting Exercise”. The best part is that even the most unachievable target looks achievable on excel sheets!
This article is by no means a mockery of the target setting process or those who handed down targets. On the contrary, it is a position challenging the assumptions on the basis of which targets are handed down. Volatile markets, rising competition, cost-cutting, investment doubts are some that have to be factored in. Unfortunately, they are never given their weight.
Being in this game all through the last 2 decades, never has been a year when there wasn't a gap between what the on-ground sales team wanted to get as a target and what the organization actually gave. As someone, who has been sandwiched between the Management and the sales team, I have heard widely different comments on the subject of assignment of year targets from my managers.
One CEO said to me, “Hey! that is too much! Let your team achieve targets and earn incentives. They will overachieve”. One said, “It is OK to take higher target (read as “unachievable target”) and fail, rather than take an achievable figure.” Another CEO told me, “You know what, you are being too practical. Sales team is here to deliver what we want them to deliver. Nothing is impossible.” There was another who said, “Let us incentivize them more. Let us give them more money in hand.” One CEO went on to say that, “The cost of doing business is sky-rocketing. Our overheads are phenomenal & we need to take high growth target.”
Some bold number targets were easily achieved and some rational targeting was horribly missed. The question I ask is do we need targets at all? This lead to my search on organizations that this queer thing of not giving targets at all to its sales team and still went on to grow year on year. Except for some anecdotal reports of performance excellence without target assignments, there was not a single organization that did this mad thing.
Excellence is a habit. It is a choice that we make and try to achieve mind-fully. Our personal and professional lives need targets. Then and then only, there will be an effort that will go into it. The question then is how to set this target then? Do we set an achievable target or a stretched target that is achievable?
