There is a big difference between a goal or target, and a commitment or mandate; make sure you don’t confuse the two.
In one of the businesses I am a partner in, we recently got into a discussion about the fact that the production people need to tell us what they are going to be able to produce each week before the new week starts. One of the top managers equated establishing this number for production to the goals that their sales people have.
While that may make sense to most people on the surface, I see a big distinction between production and sales. Sales has goals they HOPE they can meet. There may be factors out of their control. Someone else (the client or customer) has to decide to buy. Sales can have goals, but in reality they cannot make a promise. Production, on the other hand, has complete control over what they produce or don’t produce. There is very little that is not within their control. If they have all the people and resources, they should be able to commit. They don’t need a goal. They need a mandate.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t think in most cases that management should impose the mandate. While I do think that the production people need to understand what kind of output from them is generally required, they need to be the ones to say what output they will have during the coming week or month. Obviously, if that number is too low, management will have to figure out why production doesn’t think they can do what they need to do, and clear that roadblock or those roadblocks out of the way for them.
My point is there is a big difference between a goal or target, and a commitment or mandate. Don’t confuse the two. If you let those who should be making a commitment instead set a goal, they will always potentially have an “out” for lack of performance. And when it comes to production in the AEC business, if you have the work and the people to do it, nothing should keep you from making your numbers.
Mark Zweig is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com.