Determine Goals: G5

The Right Sort of Achievement

Achievement for the organization, as expected of management, has not yet been assured in the framework. Work so far produces achievements in the sense of concrete results, but not necessarily what is desired or optimal.

The three specialist functions-G4 deliver achievement in their own terms and within their own area of expertise. However, the way forward is evident because the general management function has a brief to integrate all work in the service of the mission.

This involves determining goals. However, exactly what goals are chosen depends on the ambitions of those responsible. Cf. ambition as the force within expectations of employment.

Determining goals and organising everything around delivering on them must be done realistically. This means adding another level of duty to form the Pentads. What is realistic will be debatable, in part because conventional views are so powerful. There is no external arbiter when it comes to the application of ambition: the present is problematic and the future is uncertain. Because coercion is impractical and success is only possible if everybody pulls together, gaining management consensus around goals is essential.

3 Domains of Ambition

Determining goals that channel achievement realistically produces 3 overlapping 5-Level hierarchical groups (Pentads): see diagram.

G53 G52 G51

Mission-oriented Planning Resource Provision Operational Activity

WL7 - WL3 WL6 - WL2 WL5 - WL1

In moving down the Pentads, there is a natural progression from:

• thinking about fundamental goals and how they should be best pursued,

  to

• enabling the mobilization, use and monitoring of resources,

  to

• enabling actual activities in the operations whatever the situation.

The Pentads reveal different orientations to management. Each of the domains needs ambitious goals and affirms its own distinctive measures of success. The controversial issues in each domain are: what exactly to aim for, what measurable outcomes would constitute success, and how consensus can be achieved.

Features

Function: The Pentads enable everyone to be oriented properly so that functional activities mesh and lead to desired achievements.

Quality: Goal-setting, coverage and definitions of success within each Pentad must be handled realistically and generate a unity of effort and understanding.

Integration within each Group: Coverage by a general manager who develops a management consensus around key goals and ways to deliver them.

Integration across all Groups: Pursuit of the organization's mission must be integrated with provision of resources and handling of the exigencies of operations within an uncontrollable physical and social environment. This depends on those managers with work-duties within all three domains (i.e. at WL3, WL4 & WL5).

Psychological Correlate: Inner tendencies push people to different Pentads: thinkers and idealists to planning; support and service providers to resources; and dynamic doers to operations.

Personal Tension: Personal goals (based on inner needs, self-interest and concrete loyalties) v an abstract appreciation of the importance of organizational success.

Social Correlate: The wider world's interest in measures of success and lack of interest in the process or means.

Organisational Tension: The abstract imperatives of the mission and related purposes conflict with desires for expedient results to handle the flow of practical problems.

Practical Implications: Development of each of the domains using matrix organization to enable cross-functional working. A planning process in each domain that allows inputs from many levels as a way of generating the necessary consensus.

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• See further explanation of these features and details of each of the Domains of Ambition within organizations.

Originally posted: 26-Mar-2014