The reason why is central to the third “lie” of Marcus Buckingham’s book. He indicates that pursuing goals just because you are expected to do this in an organization does not achieve the intended result.
Companies spend a lot of money and time to work with step-by-step objectives (from high to low in an organization – also referred to as cascaded objectives by Buckingham). Precisely because organizations are regularly convinced that setting goals will ensure that:
– the noses will point in the same direction
– the process will be mapped
– it can be used to evaluate the work
The principle quoted by Buckingham is that this belief often fails to deliver what is hoped for. To achieve alignment, for example, it is important that a shared and cascaded meaning is established.
In short, it is more powerful to know the why and how you can contribute to this, than just to hear what you must do to achieve the goals from above.
