Continuing with Managing for Excellence: The Guide to Developing High Performance in Contemporary Organizations by Bradford & Cohen (find previous discussion here and here), the goal of this post is to discuss Chapter 04. In other words, what do we mean by overarching goal.
The book starts with two great quotes which were heavily highlighted by me:
This it precisely the engine that drives high performance forward: vision. Or, in context of this book, overarching goal.
So, let’s discuss precisely what this is, what are the benefits, and how to sustain it.
Without identifiable purpose, greatness cannot emerge.
The Developer (Manager-as-Developer, Postheroic Leader) has to create an explicit goal to serve as a guiding star, to shape actions so that all parts of the organization reinforce one another and the goal. Without identifiable purpose, greatness cannot emerge.
We are not talking here about mission statements, which in most companies turn to empty, meaningless slogans. Developer has to not only believe and constantly talk about overarching goal, but also work to reinforce these by personal actions, reward system, hiring practices, organizational structure and other aspects of managing. If we take into account that subordinates are constantly evaluating leadership signals from Manager, Developer’s efforts are truly the starting point of implementing the overarching goal into action.
Benefits of overarching goal are as follows:
- It builds a common frame of reference that allows people with different backgrounds and varying orientations to pull collectively toward the same ends.
- It is an important force for change: it describes what could be, what the department should strive for.
- It is highly motivational.
- It places individual tasks within a larger framework, thereby giving work greater significance.
- When the overarching goal is stated as a challenge or difficulty to be overcome, the motivational power is further enhanced.
1 Characteristics of an Overarching Goal
Author states something that resonates very deeply today. Human relations are important, and it’s a legit and important need of employees. However, this need for appropriate relationships is often confused or displaced with department’s tasks as an objective. If the goal is to focus member effort around task attainment, the goal must reflect that task. Being the department where people have the most fun may build up esprit de corps (team morale), but it does not guarantee high work performance.
Being the department where people have the most fun may build up esprit de corps (team morale), but it does not guarantee high work performance.
- The goal must be consistent with the general purpose of the organization as a whole.
- The departmental goal has to be compatible with what the other departments can deliver.
- The goal has to be feasible in terms of departmental manager’s personal capacities.
- Bold, risky marketing approaches are not appropriate if the marketing manager’s style doesn’t include risk taking.
The goal must be consistent with the general purpose of the organization as a whole.
Tasks that are stretching – difficult, but achievable – will pull the best from most subordinates. Challenge creates the willingness to invest in work, high commitment, and pursuit of excellence.
Tasks that are stretching – difficult, but achievable – will pull the best from most subordinates.
Work is a central aspect of most people’s life, a way the person defines identity and self-worth. Not all tasks can have earth-shattering significance, but most work can be put in terms that highlight its meaning to others. Overarching goal that stresses benefits to other people or their objectives can put even routine work into a larger perspective.
Work is a central aspect of most people’s life, a way the person defines identity and self-worth.
2 The Importance of an Overarching Goal
The lack of overarching goal represents a major loss of potential power on the part of the manager. Without it, manager tends to fall into a maintenance role that at best produces a more efficient version of an existing situation. Overarching goal gives manager better leadership role, and it is a necessary ingredient for excellence of a department.
It can be found below why overarching goal is important.
If the manager can articulate and gain member commitment to a vision of the future, the goal serves as an important stimulus for change towards excellence. This mandate for change applies not only to what is to be done, but also how the unit is to operate. For example:
- Do existing forms and procedures existing only for convenience of personnel, or do they really help the managers to supervise better?
- Are we delivering timely feedback to employees about their performance? Is it rewarded?
- Do skills and abilities of employees need additional training? Do they need to be retrained?
The impetus for change becomes the need to meet the goal, not pressure from leader. This depersonalization of justification for the change can make it easier for subordinates because they do not feel they have to subjugate themselves to a superior’s grandiose, personal power play or ego trip in order to stay employed.
Depersonalization of justification for the change.
Once the goal is articulated, it assumes a life of its own. With depersonalization of justification, energy can go into finding the best solutions to achieve the goal, not into one person’s winning. The focus starts to be exclusively on the goal, not on the person.
If members buy into the same goal, the likelihood is increased that they will act in compatible ways despite strong individual differences. In other words, people with diverse viewpoints can strive to achieve the same ends.
Too many managers fear conflict so much that they prematurely stifle it. They worry that everything will fall apart if they allow conflicts to surface.
Yet, conflict is inherent in the nature of organizations: dividing tasks requires that each person have slightly differing goals to do his or her job well. Struggling over issues helps promote more creative resolution of issues.
In other words, by accepting overarching goal, Developer can promote conflict to encourage the expression of differences and full engagement among the subordinates. When conflicts do arise, they will be resolved because the overarching goal serves as an integrator: it is the common reference on which to stand on.
Managers can easily get swamped in day-to-day interactions (information overload) and lose the sight of department’s reason for existence. Overarching goal guards against this tunnel vision.
When the departmental task is defined in terms of challenge that has a larger meaning, involvement goes up. Most people need to believe in something that is larger than their day-to-day, often mundane tasks. Clarity in terms of department’s direction means a lot.
Manager’s charisma plays a role here in context of formulating and selling a goal that taps into member needs for belonging to a unit that does challenging and meaningful work.
Overarching goal that stresses excellence can be used by the leader (and by other members) as the standard by which tasks are to be judged.
3 Establishing an Overarching Goal
The leader has two important tasks here:
- Formulation of an appropriate overarching goal.
- Gaining acceptance of an overarching goal by members.
3.1 Developing the Overarching Goal
Leader is here free to assume that their unit is central to the organization and that what they produce — documents, information, services and goods — is crucial to people outside the unit, who are also performing crucial functions. After seeing his unit through this mindset, the steps for formulating an overarching goal are as follows:
- Identify what the department does for its client, the total organization and society.
- Search for a match between external services department provides and its internal capacities.
- With two above steps, you should be able to formulate a goal. Sell it by talking first about what it does for the larger good, then for the organization, for your clients, for you personally, and finally for your subordinates.
Following these steps doesn’t mean that overarching goal will be set in store. Iteration process will lead to the true overarching goal, it just takes time and effort.
If the department is not highly homogeneous, the chosen goal will increase the influence of some members at the expense of others. Those who would lose influence or who do not like the direction implied by the goal have it in their best interest to block the group from reaching a decision. Any goal that all members would readily agree to (because it makes no one uncomfortable) is likely to be so general that it would have low potency for guiding departmental decisions. Goal statements that do not force choices may find easy acceptance, but their influence won’t be worth the time it takes to say them.
3.2 Gaining Member Commitment
After formulating overarching goal, securing member acceptance must be viewed as a long-term effort that will require persistence and consistency. The goal must be recalled by repeated mentions on relevant occasions and backed by actions that give weight to the verbal statements. All of this aligns perfectly well with Mintzberg’s 10 roles of a Manager.
Few words on soft skills here: words do make a difference, and the way a goal is stated and then reinforced in frequent references has great impact. Leader does not have to be a gifted orator who can enthrall an audience, but he must be able to talk about his unit’s work vividly and about it’s goals convincingly.
Delivery matters.
Enthusiastic repetition of the goal is an important tool for a leader who wished to gain organizational commitment to overarching goal.
Developer’s actions also hold symbolic value in this phase. For example, leader could do the following:
- Be on the lookout for subordinate actions that reflect the goal and give public support to them.
- Dramatically shift the reward system to reflect new priorities.
- Confront key resister who has consistently blocked progress.
- Or any other action that will signal to members that it is not business as usual anymore.
4 Potential Difficulties with the Concept of an Overarching Goal
No, but you will rarely encounter this in practice.
There is no fixed time, but a year is probably a closer estimate than a few months.
Light, trivial modifications are possible, but not fundamental ones. The reason lies in the fact that commitment is difficult to build, and therefore it is equally difficult to abandon a shift to a new objective.
Both tasks require skills that are of total opposition to each other:
- Formulation: reflective behavior, taking in more than is given out and being highly responsive to others.
- Commitment: more closed to outside influence. Selling skills take precedence.
Not many leaders are proficient in both areas.
On one hand, goal formulations skills are teachable and learnable. But, can managers really learn charisma? No, but they can learn the functional equivalent of charisma – inspiring high commitment – even if the manager does not become a magnetic personality. We are here talking about leaders who need to inspire their department, not a nation.
The aim of the manager is not personally to be the source of excitement (by producing adoration and commitment to oneself), but to attribute excitement to the departmental task. To the extent that the leader has done the job of defining an exciting goal, the goal will hold the power to excite. The goal should be based on untapped needs of the subordinates and should show how they can be larger than themselves by buying into it. If well formulated, the goal itself will carry a great deal of the excitement.
Leader has to believe in a product he is trying to sell. But, no need for flashy delivery and slickness. The enthusiasm, repetition and brute attention easily outperforms these.
