Targets and outcomes culture - should I hate it?

[Brainaddict]

Fuck me, they have gotten to you!!! Leave work NOW!!!

The difference is, I mean it

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

It's a bit catch-22 this isn't it?

We need targets to ensure that people do their job well. Then the same people spend most of their time concentraing on the target and how to get round it, thus avoiding doing their job...

no we don't.

we need skilled workers to be placed into management roles which sadly isn't for everyone and these skilled managers are then fromt he shop floor and have experince and knowledge of the industry they are in which then means they are more competant to do the job which means they can accurately assess the level of work going on and also the improvements of their staff.

In the days' of careers and in the dyign stages of captialism of course the revenue generation is the only prime motivator so these people experinced people are expensive new people aren't so we forego subejct knowledge for cheaper goods as a result we have no idea if people working for us are actually doing a good job or achiving the work levels they may do.

only a dying system needs to set out a list of standards it will meet beforehand in order to assess if it is actually working...

 

[Brainaddict]

only a dying system needs to set out a list of standards it will meet beforehand in order to assess if it is actually working...

I'm not sure it's a symptom of capitalism dying but I think it might be a symptom of society dying. Sadly I suspect capitalism might be able to outlive society

 

[Hocus Eye.]

So Hocus, demonstrate how your approach can show voters and taxpayers they are getting both a good service and value for their money.

I guess that you want me to show a means of demonstrating quality rather than quantity.

How about recent reports that children in Britain's schools are the unhappiest in Europe.

There are probably even numbers that can demonstrate this to the accountancy minded. The numbers of children with psychological problems displayed in self-harming, and eating disorders. Or perhaps the attempted suicide rate. Then there is the number of children of school age turning to drugs such as alcohol to escape their lives.

Of course this would show that voters and taxpayers are not getting good value for their money, which I suggest is the case.

 

[Gmart]

I'm not sure it's a symptom of capitalism dying but I think it might be a symptom of society dying. Sadly I suspect capitalism might be able to outlive society

Seeing as society is just a word for a large number of people. How can it die? Are you suggesting that lots of people are about to die?

Perhaps an example to illustrate please?

 

[kyser_soze]

I guess that you want me to show a means of demonstrating quality rather than quantity.

How about recent reports that children in Britain's schools are the unhappiest in Europe.

There are probably even numbers that can demonstrate this to the accountancy minded. The numbers of children with psychological problems displayed in self-harming, and eating disorders. Or perhaps the attempted suicide rate. Then there is the number of children of school age turning to drugs such as alcohol to escape their lives.

Of course this would show that voters and taxpayers are not getting good value for their money, which I suggest is the case.

Hmm, and how much of that is solely down to schools, and not other social factors like poverty?

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I'm not sure it's a symptom of capitalism dying but I think it might be a symptom of society dying. Sadly I suspect capitalism might be able to outlive society

nope...

absolutly not...

society isn't dying as society never existed...

culture on the other hand ...

and cultures change all the time....

captialism has eatten itself whole and is not having problems swallowing it's own head...

realitically how thin can you slice a pie before the majority have a sliver and you get the whole pie? and when they are starving and you are over fed fat and slow who will protect you then....

the ultimate aim of capitalism is to destory itself, sooner or later someone will hold all the cash at which point they lose all the power... or have to kill eveyr other person on the planet...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Hmm, and how much of that is solely down to schools, and not other social factors like poverty?

Yes, this is a fundamental flaw of the 'league table' approach. Remember the outcry from the opt-out middle classes when Bristol Uni suggested setting those from state schools lower offers than those from private schools. Bottom line is that the kids from state schools do much better at uni than kids from private schools with the same grades. If you went to Eton and only got three Cs, that may say a great deal about your (lack of) potential.

 

[Demosthenes]

But in the charity sector, was the engine even fucked in the first place? It seems to be mostly about fashion rather than attempting to address problems. Was everyone saying Amnesty was doing a shit job? Not that I'm aware of. But they suddenly decided - along with everyone else it seems - that they needed to show measurable results. FFS it's human rights campaigning - no-one expects you to be able to show a bunch of statistics showing what you've achieved. Anyone with any sense knows that it's more complicated than that.

mm, fair point. I just mean, maybe what I said is the original cause of the trend to quantifying.

 

[weltweit]

Thing is, targets are fine in the private sector. In the private sector there is one goal only - to make money. This enormously simplifies the tasks of the organisation and enables meaningful targets to be set very easily. For instance, increased efficiency in producing something = more profit = good.

I think you sweep aside the private sector with the same noncholance that you wish to disregard targets as a concept.

Yes in the private sector you must at the top level cover your costs, including expected returns for banks, owners and or shareholders but this is an exercise in balancing income and expenditure. NHS hospitals and trusts must also balance income and expenditure but in their case income is a lot more certain and predictable than in the case of private industry.

At a lower level in industry there is product and market choice, customer preferences and benefits, the impact of competition, legislation and the environment, production techniques, technology and research and development, attracting and keeping the best talent etc .. many of which are areas where targets are very hard to set and monitor.

How would you go about targetting and monitoring a team of engineers working on a unique new product? you probably would have to estimate the project and set budgets and then monitor against those. There is no reason afaikt why you cannot use budgets in the state sector or in charities.

But what if you're trying to lift children out of poverty? Increased 'poverty efficiency' (and believe it or not that is a real term) may sound like a good thing, but what if you achieve it at the expense of, say, social cohesion?

Trying to lift children out of poverty? are you trying to do it on your own? I suspect not. You could start by measuring how many children are in poverty and maintain that measurement over time. If you were unable to affect the measure upwards in a few years or tens of years time I would suggest people stop giving you any more money!!!

Anyhow it seems to me that children in poverty and social cohesion are jobs for the government. I doubt you could tempt me to give money to a charity that was focussing on that area, that imho is what my taxes are for.

 

[weltweit]

.... the ultimate aim of capitalism is to destory itself, sooner or later someone will hold all the cash at which point they lose all the power... or have to kill eveyr other person on the planet...

Interesting aside .. I suspect long before someone holds all the cash, they and their ilk will have been taken out by a revolution which is pretty inevitable when inbalance becomes too great.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Anyhow it seems to me that children in poverty and social cohesion are jobs for the government. I doubt you could tempt me to give money to a charity that was focussing on that area, that imho is what my taxes are for.

Yet, if the government are clearly failing in their duties in this respect, would you not say that there should be charities that lobby government about their failings, as well as pushing for policies that will go some way to ameliorating, improving or overcoming the problem of children living in poverty? And how does that organisation demonstrate success? Because their targets are contingent on another bodies activities.

 

[Brainaddict]

Trying to lift children out of poverty? are you trying to do it on your own? I suspect not. You could start by measuring how many children are in poverty and maintain that measurement over time. If you were unable to affect the measure upwards in a few years or tens of years time I would suggest people stop giving you any more money!!!

I think you missed what my problem was with trying to generate 'poverty efficiency'. It's not that you can't measure it. It's that you'd be missing an awful lot of possible side-effects of what you're doing, whatever measure you tried to use.

 

[weltweit]

Yet, if the government are clearly failing in their duties in this respect, would you not say that there should be charities that lobby government about their failings, as well as pushing for policies that will go some way to ameliorating, improving or overcoming the problem of children living in poverty? And how does that organisation demonstrate success? Because their targets are contingent on another bodies activities.

If someone wants to set up a lobbying organisation to attain a specific change in government policy then I might well be persuaded to support it. How would you measure its success? easy, when government adopts the new policy it has succeeded, at which point the lobby organisation should disband with a celebratory victory party.

There are similar organisations however to this one above, the political parties. They are also in the game of changing government policy and also of asking for donations.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

If someone wants to set up a lobbying organisation to attain a specific change in government policy then I might well be persuaded to support it. How would you measure its success? easy, when government adopts the new policy it has succeeded, at which point the lobby organisation should disband with a celebratory victory party.

That's the thing though, the government don't often adopt the specific policy, they might simply acknowledge the problem exists, they might change the way that they work but in very different ways, they might not even do anything at all but the issue is raised in the wider public conciousness so that other people begin to address the issue in other practical ways, for eg, starting their own local groups, volunteering etc. The point is that this kind of work can be quite ephemeral.

Similarly, with direct services, it can be very difficult to objectively demonstrate the positive impact of something that you have done because what can be perceived as a failure by the worker is seen as a success by their client(s) and vice versa. And thus you end up analysing yourself to such an extent that your core activities can become secondary or impinged upon. Analysis paralysis is a phrase i heard this week which is a neat way of putting it.

 

[Demosthenes]

Interesting aside .. I suspect long before someone holds all the cash, they and their ilk will have been taken out by a revolution which is pretty inevitable when inbalance becomes too great.

I think the imbalance is already too great, and there's no revolution.

And if it got greater, well, a strict economic system can ensure that most of the people who might oppose it, because it doesn't work for them, will die.
And that anyone who tries anyting is a criminal or a terrorist.

 

[weltweit]

I think you missed what my problem was with trying to generate 'poverty efficiency'. It's not that you can't measure it. It's that you'd be missing an awful lot of possible side-effects of what you're doing, whatever measure you tried to use.

But now you are doing exactly the same as you did when you dismissed the targets culture of the private sector by saying for them its just simple.

It was never simple in the private sector yet they try with measurement to get to grips with some of the measurable issues.

Want to know how easy it is to increase profits in private sector industry? just sack all your researchers and developers and develop the freed up land into a housing estate. You will make loads of profits for a while, for a while being the operative phrase. Research and development is notoriously difficult to measure yet private industry keep doing it because it is essential to long term business health.

So with the poverty example, there are side effects, well there are to most things ..

which of the side effects can you most easily measure?

for the rest, if you cannot measure them how can you prove they exist?

 

[weltweit]

That's the thing though, the government don't often adopt the specific policy, they might simply acknowledge the problem exists, they might change the way that they work but in very different ways, they might not even do anything at all but the issue is raised in the wider public conciousness so that other people begin to address the issue in other practical ways, for eg, starting their own local groups, volunteering etc. The point is that this kind of work can be quite ephemeral.

I think any organisation asking for finance has to be quite clear publically as to what their objectives are. If it is also able to report in some way progress on its objectives then it will probably be perceived as more credible than others that don't.

Similarly, with direct services, it can be very difficult to objectively demonstrate the positive impact of something that you have done because what can be perceived as a failure by the worker is seen as a success by their client(s) and vice versa. And thus you end up analysing yourself to such an extent that your core activities can become secondary or impinged upon. Analysis paralysis is a phrase i heard this week which is a neat way of putting it.

I don't really follow you with the workers failure / client success bit?

Analysis paralysis is a phrase I have come across in industry also, it is certainly possible to measure too much and then to forget to actually do anything !! I think politicians may be guilty of causing this in some state sector organisations, the NHS perhaps.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Interesting aside .. I suspect long before someone holds all the cash, they and their ilk will have been taken out by a revolution which is pretty inevitable when inbalance becomes too great.

i dunno that suggests two things one the imbalance at present is tollerable and two that people will rise up when they are very much plugged into the main frame at present.

you devaule people make them hopeless show them that dissent is un accepted in all but the most asigenine way then you spood feed them trinkets and toys to make them asperational so they keep paying into the system which enslaves them...

I can't see people wising up to that level of brainwashing for some time and i mean sometime like tsunami hit's the uk due to global warming type natral disater will cause more change than any kind of social revolution. really, how many people buy the sun or the mail or the express or star buck or nike or whatever...

ciggerettes are a classic example we know it's basically a long winded (scuse the pun) sucide note yet sonmkers still number some 9 million in this country... 9 million people commiting sucide each day in effect... and carelessly might be taking another 3 million or so with them when they do...

but hopelessness keeps you trapped.

and there's nothing which is empowering people at present.

radical poltics is about as far removed from people as it's possible to be and instead of rebranding to make themselves relevant to the majority they spend their time in smaller and smaller factions debating what beardy old men used to say rather than being a combined force for greater good... and because of the atom bomb explosion effect left wing social poltics has (where the cascade keeps going down to the lowest level and then fragmenting again) they are utterly irrevent to the very people they might galvanise.

how do you tell someone it's the drugs they are addicted to money lifestylism etc that is making them illl

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I don't really follow you with the workers failure / client success bit?

Say someone comes for advice about a benefit claim. You tell them that its unlikely that an application will succeed but they want to find out for certain. So you help them with the application form and they are turned down.

Is that a successful outcome or not? You could be said to have empowered that person to enforce their right to claim. However, the claim was unsuccesful, as you predicted. Will that person be happy with your actions? Will they perceive that as a good outcome or not?

 

[weltweit]

Say someone comes for advice about a benefit claim. You tell them that its unlikely that an application will succeed but they want to find out for certain. So you help them with the application form and they are turned down.

Is that a successful outcome or not? You could be said to have empowered that person to enforce their right to claim. However, the claim was unsuccesful, as you predicted. Will that person be happy with your actions? Will they perceive that as a good outcome or not?

Yes that is an interesting point.

I suppose you could say that you have had X number of client interviews and have processed Y number of claims.

It could be said that the person presented themselves because the information in the public domain was not clear enough and that if it was clearer they would not have visited, because they would have realised a claim was not going to pass, and thus the system wasted your time.

hmm.. yes I can see that is interesting.

But I guess that also comes back to definitions, what is the purpose of an organisation? and how can that purpose be carried out most effectively?

In business definitions are very critical. Imagine that (years ago) the manufacturer of telex machines defined themselves as a telex machine manufacturer. When fax machines came along (unexpectedly for them) they would be out of business. If instead they had defined themselves as a business communications company, they could have been in the forefront of fax machine development and survived that technological leap.

So how would you define the purpose of the benefits agency?

 

[Hollis]

But in the charity sector, was the engine even fucked in the first place? It seems to be mostly about fashion rather than attempting to address problems. Was everyone saying Amnesty was doing a shit job? Not that I'm aware of. But they suddenly decided - along with everyone else it seems - that they needed to show measurable results. FFS it's human rights campaigning - no-one expects you to be able to show a bunch of statistics showing what you've achieved. Anyone with any sense knows that it's more complicated than that.

I think you're grossly simplifying. Frankly targets and outcomes is far preferable to just sloshing money around the place..

Its not without its problems and abused by politicians and media alike.. however I think it does serve to focus the mind..

 

[Gmart]

Another symptom of the breakdown in trust between citizens...

 

[weltweit]

... you devaule people make them hopeless show them that dissent is un accepted in all but the most asigenine way then you spood feed them trinkets and toys to make them asperational so they keep paying into the system which enslaves them...

But do you have a better system? I don't.

ciggerettes are a classic example we know it's basically a long winded (scuse the pun) sucide note yet sonmkers still number some 9 million in this country... 9 million people commiting sucide each day in effect... and carelessly might be taking another 3 million or so with them when they do...

The last time I tried to estimate it, the government was more hooked on smokers taxes than smokers were to fags.

Income from smoking taxes, after costs to the NHS of treating smokers, are the equivalent of 10% of national health service spending.

radical poltics is about as far removed from people as it's possible to be and instead of rebranding to make themselves relevant to the majority they spend their time in smaller and smaller factions debating what beardy old men used to say rather than being a combined force for greater good...

I have never been much attracted to radical politics, in fact I am not much attracted to middle ground politics at all in the last few years. There will be a seperation of left and right in due course, the main parties cannot stay together for ever, at some point someone will have the courage of their convictions, the question is, I think, whether the public will actually now vote at all for a non centre ground party.

... how do you tell someone it's the drugs they are addicted to money lifestylism etc that is making them illl

Well wrt climate change, there is still time to change our ways. Not much time but it is still possible to avert it.

 

[Hollis]

Another symptom of the breakdown in trust between citizens...

Hmm - I'm not sure to what extent this existed or is just a myth peddled by vested interests and assorted other power structure etc etc. blah blah.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Hmm - I'm not sure to what extent this existed or is just a myth peddled by vested interests and assorted other power structure etc etc. blah blah.

Crisis can foster solidarity. But, for instance, by all accounts people started retreating into themselves almost immediately after the end of WW2.

Must come together to win war.

Must come together to win war.

*War won*

Hmmm, house prices...

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Yes that is an interesting point.

I suppose you could say that you have had X number of client interviews and have processed Y number of claims.

It could be said that the person presented themselves because the information in the public domain was not clear enough and that if it was clearer they would not have visited, because they would have realised a claim was not going to pass, and thus the system wasted your time.

hmm.. yes I can see that is interesting.

But I guess that also comes back to definitions, what is the purpose of an organisation? and how can that purpose be carried out most effectively?

In business definitions are very critical. Imagine that (years ago) the manufacturer of telex machines defined themselves as a telex machine manufacturer. When fax machines came along (unexpectedly for them) they would be out of business. If instead they had defined themselves as a business communications company, they could have been in the forefront of fax machine development and survived that technological leap.

So how would you define the purpose of the benefits agency?

On your first paras, that's the difference between outputs (eg number of people seen) and outcomes (eg how many people you've made happy), which is kind of what i've been driving at thru this thread. you can spend so much time working out the definition of what it is you're supposed to be doing, that you don't end up doing what yoiu're good at.

Dealing with people isn't like dealing telex/fax machines, they don't follow normal patterns and they can make some amazing patterns when they all come together.

I'm done on definitions for now

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

But do you have a better system? I don't.

i never really get this argument as a rational tbh. No one person will have the 'solution' to the problem. no one person will have an alternative these things are organic they grow into being. that said it doesn't stop you seeing the flaws in the system or mean that you are blind to alternatives.

The last time I tried to estimate it, the government was more hooked on smokers taxes than smokers were to fags.

Income from smoking taxes, after costs to the NHS of treating smokers, are the equivalent of 10% of national health service spending.

erm that wasn't really my point. ie was an example of what hopelessness can do to people.

I have never been much attracted to radical politics, in fact I am not much attracted to middle ground politics at all in the last few years. There will be a seperation of left and right in due course, the main parties cannot stay together for ever, at some point someone will have the courage of their convictions, the question is, I think, whether the public will actually now vote at all for a non centre ground party.

no they won't.

not in this country anyway.

people vote in the UK for a conservative government regardless of the brand label asigned to it. when they saw it was time for a change and the tories weren't allowing them the captial which they wanted they switched sides. you don't think that murdochs support of labour in 1997 was becuase he'd had a change of heart do you?

centralised poltics govermental politics isn't representative of the people and hasn't been for perhaps 300 years if not always. but in those early days before the promenance of party politics elected representatives were at least more accountable to their constituants. but since the advent of party poltics they are only beholdant to the central core make more money...

were we ever to abolish party poltics or ban it out right rather than the current cementing being suggested (tax funded parties) then you might see a change. however i've yet to meet a politition who'd actively wish to destory their party. after all they have their careers to think about.

in the old representational days people were elected to represent the issues of their area now they are selected to best serve the issues of their party....

so they won't move from the centre ground because that's the natral winners spot...

what will happen as is what's happening is that the centre line becomes harder and harder to maintain so the party in power will naturally drift rightwards in an attempt to normalise more radical but less costly actions. and in order to compete the opposition will need to be more radically right wing to outshine them. after which time it becomes a nasty pissing contest basically...

cenrtalised poltics isn't relevant to most people until it places greater strain on their lives via greater taxation or austier legislation.

but then we roll back to the hopelessness side of the equation. people too dispondant won't vote they turn round and say this doesn't represent me so i'm not taking part and of course this is what is wanted. parties want you to vote for them or not at all. they don't fear you voting for the opposition because they know if you are dispondant about their polices then you'll be dispondant at their polices hence the situtation where it's prefferable that you won't vote at all...

Well wrt climate change, there is still time to change our ways. Not much time but it is still possible to avert it.

nah cliemate change will prove to be a well orchestrated diversion to distract people from whats really going on, which is the wholesale ape of the world by a few to gain significant wealth...

 

[fela fan]

Top-down - bad
Bottom-up - good

One or the other - bad
Both - good

 

[fela fan]

The culture of targets and outcomes is the culture of non-trust and control and conformity.

That's why britain has become obsessed with measuring things, the very measuring of which has the outcome of wasting people's energies on conforming to directives rather than doing the actual work.

Alone in education tests and testing has severely impacted on teaching and learning. The UK is now obsessed over this aspect of education, with all these 'enforcers' apparently completely unaware of the negative washback effect of tests, and how teachers simply end up teaching for the tests.

Whole armies of the british population are marching along conforming to targets, spending large chunks of their time filling out forms instead of doing the work.

It's a very orwellian and frightening movement that the country has taken. The british people's needs for control and conformity have caused a blind spot, and the advance of the nation is suffering badly.