Paper Example - Management by Objectives

Management by objectives (MBO) is a result-oriented strategy that deviated from the traditional dictation of duties to the negotiation of the tasks demanded of the employee. This strategy works on five objectives: setting the objective, determining the team and department goals, setting individual goals, creating an action plan, and reviewing performance.

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Setting the objective-like every critical stage in management, planning is critical, and this is attained through setting goals and objectives of what needs to be done, within specified time limits. These objectives thereby act as guidelines towards the activities, tasks, and projects to be undertaken.

Determining team and department goals- while setting goals, the management of an organization has to sort out goals suitable for teams as well as those directed towards departments. This ensures that every individual within the organization appreciated the goals that the organization intends to attain, and therefore set their minds into attaining them.]

Setting individual goals- team and department goals might too broad, and therefore, setting individual goals to allow the management to delegate specific duties to the employees. These duties, however, must align with the general team and department goals.

Creating an action plan- an objective is a mere statement if it lacks an action plan to back it up. Therefore, creating an action plan is a critical part of attaining the objectives. It entails the allocation of time, resources, skills, and models regarding what should be done for the objectives to be attained.

Reviewing performance- once the employees and resources have been directed towards the set objectives, a systematic review of performance is critical. It is a roadmap towards knowing what works towards the objectives and what has to be modified.

A balanced scorecard acts as a framework towards the bonding of short term activities into long term objectives through four processes and these include;

• Translating the organization's vision- the difference between a goal and the desired results is the transitioning between these two points. The measurements provided by the balanced scorecards help bridge these points by enabling managers to create metrics upon which the goals can be transformed into the desired results. For example, if the goal is to enhance customer retention, the manager will know when to involve incentives, after-sale services, or good customer relations to ensure this is attained.
• Communicating and linking- the ability of scorecards to navigate the various hierarchies of an organization, and even be transformed to personal scorecards by employs help communicate the organization's goals and link these objectives to target groups. This helps every individual within the organization understand how their effort helps to realize the organization's overall goals. For example, a company that prioritizes innovation as a goal will pass this goal down to the employees and have them step up their skills and delivery processes as part of the required innovative capacity.
• Business planning- financial planning is critical to any company, and balanced scorecards help in linking the financial budget to the strategic goals. For example, balanced scorecards enable organizations to know the drivers or resources needs to boost the internal business processes, and this knowledge helps create financial and resource milestones required to make it possible.
• Feedback and learning- balanced scorecards work on a cause-and-effect formula. This strategy provides feedback to organizations, which helps in the reverse-engineering of these processes and learning what needs to be improved. An instance of this would be a failed goal towards employee retention. Therefore, an organization can assess where the goal or its implementation was faulty and adjust it for a better outcome.

An example of a management by objective process would be the goals to reduce customer complaints by 5% within two-months. This is a goal aimed at customer satisfaction. This goal will be channeled through the human resource department and directed towards sales teams and employees. Every employee must then set their objectives of how they are going to reduce the complaint rate. This could be through quality services, effective communication, and building a rapport with the customer. An action plan will then include the incentives and skills needed to attain this rapport. After a service, an employee can check to see whether a complaint was launched and learn whether it was successful. If not, a new strategy has to be formulated for the same goal.

Cross-cultural communication is challenging, and this is an issue created not only by the language differences and barriers, but also due to cultural differences. Culture, more so within the business world, exists across nine dimensions, and upon each of these dimensions, the differences become the pillar upon which the barriers to communication are erected. They include performance orientation, uncertainty avoidance, assertiveness, power distance, gender egalitarianism, institutional collectivism, humane orientation, future orientation, and global ventures. In any of these dimensions, differences in the culture can be a barrier. For example, the dimension of institutional collectivism takes upon the culture of collectivism versus individualism. Therefore in the United States, rewarding an individual is more accepted than rewarding a group. Therefore, a manager from a collectivist culture might be in trouble if he focuses too much on group rewards rather than appreciating individual skills, talents, and efforts.

In the provided dimensions of culture, an individual can be performance-oriented and still express uncertainty avoidance. Performance orientation entails the focus towards the skills and outcomes of employees, while uncertainty avoidance is the tendency to minimize unpredicted events. As an individual of both cultures, one could incorporate a structure where skills and performance are prioritized, and within these skills are a set of norms, rules, and regulations that define how each performance must be met. Therefore, if a skill is required in software designing, strict policies and rules must accompany it to ensure that these skills are also accompanied by computer ethics to minimize security issues regarding employee or customer data. Therefore, the performance orientation also considers uncertainty avoidance by the use of policies and rules.

Humane orientation is a culture that seeks to reward and recognize individuals for their empathy, generosity, kindness, altruism, and other universally accepted humane actions. As a college student, humane orientation comes in when it comes to fairness. By avoiding plagiarism in one's work, a student provides the chance for other students to be gauged under the same radar. Therefore, a semester of plagiarized work leads to better grades.

Gender egalitarianism is a culture that dictates the positions of men and women in the workplace. On the other hand, institutional collectivism focuses on recognizing and rewarding groups rather than individuals. Using these two cultures for Hispanics, there is low gender egalitarianism where the men occupy higher positions as opposed to men. The Chicano movement was particularly against this culture. When it comes to institutional collectivism, many Hispanics will value personal rather than group rewards.

Examples of Globe Project include:

• Performance orientation- in Singapore and the United States, a culture of performance orientation is prevalent. These countries believe in performance as the key to the operation of an organization. However, for Greece and Russia, family background surpasses performance. Therefore, a person from a reputable family is likely to be promoted rather than a skilled one.
• Uncertainty avoidance- Switzerland has a range of strict norms, rules, and regulations in place to help employees avoid unpredicted events and outcomes. Consistency, order, and structure therefore are critical in such workplaces. In Malaysia, however, there is a high tolerance for change and thus less avoidance for uncertainty.
• Assertiveness- the United States values competition among employees, and reward systems are set to keep the competition running. In Sweden, on the contrary, solidarity and harmony are prioritized over competition.
• Power distance- France has an unequal distribution of power. This high power distance creates political, social, and economic stratification. Australia however, has a lower power distance and mainly encourages cooperative interaction and equality.
• Gender egalitarianism- in South Korea, there is low-gender egalitarianism, with men holding higher positions than women. In the Netherlands, however, a more tolerating attitude towards diversity is upheld.
• Institutional collectivism- Sweden displays a higher tendency towards group rewards, while the United States emphasized individual rewards and achievements.
• Humane orientation- Malaysia has a high-humane orientation and therefore rewards people more on their good deeds, while in Germany, the low-humane orientation disregards such deeds.
• Future orientation- China displays a high future orientation and thus incorporates planning, a sense of control, and realism in its systematic and strategic planning. Argentina is, one the other hand, less future-oriented. The advantage of this culture is that it is less averse to risks.

The strategy of management by objectives was facing a decrease in significance when Peter Bucker, its pioneer, stated, "It's just another tool. It is not the great cure for management inefficiency." He, therefore, accepted that his plan was not perfect, and thus suffered biases and follies. This self-acknowledgment, therefore, proved that the rigid system of management was displacing the strategy from the rewards system. Therefore, while hoping for teamwork, these systems were rewarding individual effort.

Religious leaders are less assertive and maintain high power distances. Unlike political leaders, religious leaders rarely compete for the positions they have, as many consider it a calling rather than a profession. Therefore, loyalty to the call, solidarity among each other, and harmony are prioritized. However, even when lowly assertive, religious leaders often distinguish themselves by hierarchy. There are reverends, bishops, priests, and catechists, among others. These ranks signify their experience in serving God or Allah, the regions they serve, the nature of the calling, and other differentiating qualities.