Editor's Note: This Classic tale about performance management and MBOs by Jim Brennan may be be unverifiable, but I can tell you that I've run into enough real-life situations that come uncomfortably close to this scenario in my consulting work that I feel sure it did happen - and probably continues to happen.
Post Introduction by Jim: This apocryphal story is too good to ignore, even if it can’t be verified. I learned it in my corporate training and development days many decades ago, from a boss who had taught at GMI after studying MBO under George Odiorne when he was a UMprofessor... so it is second-hand. We told this story every time we taught the performance management module of the Basic Supervision course we conducted for all new supervisors from foreman up to VP level.
While the idea for the process called Management By Objectives (MBO) was first advanced by Peter Drucker, it was practitioners like University of Michigan Professor George Odiorne who struggled with the details of exactly how to best implement the theory. Every summer, Odiorne would take time off to conduct surveys at major employers who had embraced the concept. One year, his survey concentrated on the degree of MBO satisfaction between the boss and the subordinate.
Professor George Odiorne walked into a supervisor’s office with a clipboard in one hand and a separate sheet of paper in the other.
The supervisor sighed and said, “Yes, I know. You are that professor my boss said I had to talk to. Whatever you ask, I’m supposed to answer and give you full cooperation. OK. Ask away.”
Dr. Odiorne sat down and proceeded to ask the supervisor a series of questions dealing with his perceptions and opinions. Periodically glancing at the separate page, he made notes on the clipboard answer sheet. At the end of the short interview, when the professor thanked the supervisor for his assistance in his survey and prepared to leave, the employee asked a question of his own.
“Tell me, professor, what is that sheet of paper you kept looking at when I gave my answers?”
Odiorne replied, “Why, it was a copy of your objectives. I got it from your boss.”
The supervisor’s eyes got real big. He jumped up, rushed past the researcher and carefully closed the door. Furtively turning around, he lowered his voice and whispered, “How much do you want for it?”
Odiorne said, “Here. Take it. I won’t need it any more, now that I have your answers.” With the thanks of the supervisor ringing in his ears, the puzzled professor went on his way.
He thought nothing of it, until many months later, he got a phone call from the boss. “Doctor Odiorne, after you interviewed my man last summer, his performance did an abrupt turn-around. I volunteered him for your survey because he was my worse supervisor with the lowest performance ratings every year. But after you left, he changed into a super-star. All of a sudden he started doing everything right! Whatever you said to him made him a new worker. Tell me what it would take to have you come back here and do the same thing to every other supervisor I have. I’ll pay it, whatever it costs.”
By this point, the professor was embarrassed. “Actually,” he admitted, “I really should have told you before I left, but all I did was give him a copy of his objectives list.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then Odiorne heard the boss mumble almost to himself, “I’ll be damned. I should have known the son of a bitch cheated!”
E. James (Jim) Brennan is an independent compensation advisor with extensive total rewards experience in most industries. After corporate HR posts and consulting CEO roles, he was Senior Associate of pay surveyor ERI before returning to consulting in 2015. A prolific writer (author of the Performance Management Workbook), speaker and frequent expert witness in reasonable executive compensation court cases, Jim also serves on the Advisory Board of the Compensation and Benefits Review.
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