Building Engaged Team Performance: Align Your Processes and People to Achieve Game-Changing Business Results

CHAPTER 4Individual Goals: What You Measure Is What You Get

IN THE HISTORY lesson in Chapter 2, we discussed the evolution of business management thinking, and obviously one of the key conclusions is that the body of knowledge has improved over time. Unfortunately, there is one prevalent myth from Taylor’s Scientific Management that has survived unscathed in most companies today: the fallacy of the universal effectiveness of individual goals.^*

Individual goals don’t always drive the intended performance, and they’re often counterproductive. Not sure if you believe that yet? Read on!

^* Individual goals are not quite the same thing as “performance standards” or “accountabilities”—we’ll define the differences further in a later chapter.

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