Conference 7.286::digital

I like it.

But!... To you, the personal goal is more important to reach than the
Company goal. If I tell you that your manager is in charge of giving you a
personal goal whixh will help to reach the company goal, you will agree.

Now, if you can demonstrate that your manager doesn't look for a company
goal but for some try to increase his/her power or responsability, without
taking care of the Company goals, tell his manager, have him fired out and
you will have helped the Company to become more sane.

and see the next note on People and Goals

It is assumed that for any system of goals and measurements to work that the 
sum of the subordinates work-oriented goals MUST equal the managers' 
work-oriented goals.  Example: If the sum of the Sales Representatives Account 
Direct goals do not equal or exceed the Sales Unit Manager's Direct goals, 
then that manager is in trouble.  As a consequence that Sales Unit is in 
trouble.  "There are no winners on a losing team."

Personal goals are another, but related issue.  If a manager does not include 
personal goals that are acceptable to the subordinate, and then strive to help 
the subordinate accomplish those goals, he will gain a non-motivated, average 
to below average performing subordinate whose position he may have to fill 
shortly.  One of the best managers that I had told me "I want you to want my 
job.  If you are attempting to achieve my position, you will.  In so doing, 
you will not only achieve your own goal, you will make me successful, and that 
will achieve my goal."

			 [} Mike {] 

how do you compute goals so that you can make a sum?

It is not an easy process, and not necessarily one that I can address
properly.  However, we did go through a somewhat painful process a few
years ago to make sure that most of the goals in the JP&R process are
objective, not subjective.  This means that they must be able to be
quantified.

This is probably easier to do in a field Sales/Service office... There are 
dollar and cents (convert to your native currency :-) )measurements, 
customer satisfaction survey results, binary decisions (course attended/not 
attended), and other such things.

Subjective goals are not very good for a JP&R.  If the evaluator has had a 
rough day, family problems, or is just tired, it can really bias the 
review.  Objective goals remove much of this problem for the average 
employee.  For the truly problem employee, it is also an aid to any 
necessary disciplinary action since it provides documentary evidence of 
whatever the problem is.

Of course it is hard to document a case of "Bad Attitude" in terms of 
quantities... (but is the "Bad Attitude" the problem, or the symptom of 
another problem altogether (e.g. poor motivation due to lack of definable 
goals)?

		 [} Mike {] 

    The conflict and harmony between local and global goals _defines_
    the problem of management.  Digital shares it with many other
    corporations.
    
    In brief, I think Digital is bizzare, a little arithmetic tells
    you that 80,000 people ought to be managed with about five layers
    where each manager has between 9 and 10 direct reports.  Yet my
    position, is eight levels removed from the president.  Situations
    have been described to me where they are down a dozen levels.
    
    Out of necessity we ignore hierarchies. There's no way I could
    pass information, negotiate, etc with my engineering counterparts
    if we _used_ those intervening layers.
    
    If you want to call that a "great strength" of Digital or an "anomoly",
    it's up to you.

    re: .5 "layers" - different types of companies have different types
    of structures: a basically manufacturing/sales company will have
    wide reporting structures whereas a company that is largely technology
    driven may have narrow reporting structures.  Put simplistically,
    one mfg supervisor can easily oversee 20 or so production workers.
    One research supervisor however will struggle to oversee 3 or 4 active
    researchers. So the formal, information-and-control structure really
    varies with each part of the organization.
    
    re: .0 "informal vs. formal" - the informal structure does not have
    to follow the formal structure. DIGITAL has almost everybody talking
    to everybody else as if the structure were KO:vp:us but the formal
    structure is vastly more complex, as you know.
    
    topic variant: "notesfiles as informal structure" - clearly, the
    notesfiles are usefull for our informal communications, problem
    solving, and sense of community.  Yet they conflict with some of
    the "formal" reporting systems (e.g. SPRs, ECOs) as a way of handling
    problems and of sharing information. Some notesfiles "work" better
    than others.  What is the right mix of uses for notes within the
    corporate structure? (For example, should notesfiles be used to report
    bugs?)
    
    	Rick
    	Merrill
    

    
    re .6
    		We're using VAX Notes as a bug reporting system
    	because it was the only product available at the  time 
    	( last March ) that met our needs. The other QAR systems
    	were either to inflexible, insecure or both.
    
    						Mike
    						----