Stress Objectives

9/10/12...This is day one upon returning from a week long vacation at Holden Beach, North Carolina. I write this to acknowledge posting an entry in The Toil a day after vacation may not be the brightest thing to do. But alas I have a thought important enough to document on this day.

Three years have passed since I truly had a vacation, two years since my wife and I had a vacation. Visiting the in-laws does not count. What I learned from being off was the importance of being off, as in off-line. Off the internet, off the cell phone, off attempts to blog, off the email, off any form of work contact, and off the computer. My wife and I feel refreshed.

During vacation I realized and acknowledged to my wife my disbelief regarding how tightly wound I have become over these last two years. The Toil has been a contributing factor, though not the sole factor. As this blog is dedicated more to The Toil, I wanted to focus more on this aspect. As I reflected on why I became so tightly wound, I realized the Stretch Objectives set in our organization heavily contribute to this. I love the company I work for because they treat their people well, but they also expect alot in return. For example this year I had 4 objectives to work on. Sounds reasonable right, well yes until someone adds sub-objectives to the objectives. So in 2012, in truth I actually had 11 seperate objectives to work on. Then, as part of our Human Capital Development System (an individual performance improvement system), add in another 15 seperate core values and job competencies to work on. On top of this, add in a personal Development (a mandatory optional) plan consisting of a Lean Certification and 2 other objectives. Did you lose count? If so, I will add it up...so far 29 different objectives. Oh and I did not mention the ongoing tasks coming my way, all with good intentions, from the Plant Manager whom I consider a good friend and the different Corporate Global Teams. Wow. I need another vacation.

In a Lean environment stretch objectives are set both to move the organization and the individual forward. However, a potential problem occurs when those who are setting these do not understand the concept of the "critical few." What I wrote above is not the critical few, but the critical many. And because my personality is to take these to heart, I embrace the stretch and try my best to accomplish what everyone says is important. Notice how above I did not even mention those things which I think need to be done in my job to help everyone become better, and that is because I hardly ever get to those things. And by the way, I really envy those people who just totally dismiss their objectives or not even worry about them, and lose no sleep. They are my heroes.

Here is my realization: Stretch objectives are good. I have seen a positive change in focus and improvement in the organization since using these in Policy Deployment and the Human Capital Development System. However, there is a two-fold potential flaw if stretch objectives are not used in the correct manner. One, people setting objectives and not understanding the concept of the "critical few" means the few, not the many. In turn this creates stress, not stretch. Two, organizations operating in silo's, especially in a corporate environment, are prone to create many more objectives not necessarily aligned with each other. Not to say what is being worked on is not good, but corporate functions operating apart from each other tend to place additional workloads on plant level personnel. In turn this creates stress, not stretch.

Here is my challenge: In the coming year, how can I prevent Stretch Objectives from becoming Stress Objectives? No answers right now, just a personal challenge.