I’m adding a new category named after the management guru Peter F. Drucker. His insights are truly priceless and still prove to be true today. I’ll be learning a lot from his writings.
A company/business entity, does not exist for its own sake. A company is more like a organism, where every employee is an organ (performing a specific function). So collectively, all the employees make up the entire company — and the goal of the company, like any living creature, is to survive and flourish. This is especially true for software companies, where you don’t have “physical” factories; each engineer is an “organ” and in California, your organs leave at 5 pm, and return to you at 9 am the next day — or may even decide to not return at all (usually if mistreated).
All organizations (formal or informal) have goals, said or unsaid. To reach that goal, it is essential to know what the performance measures are — without them, it is difficult to tell if you are headed in the right direction (or if you are moving at all).
Each institution will be stronger the more clearly it defines its objectives. It will be more effective the more yardsticks and measurements there are against which its performance can be appraised. It will be more legitimate the more strictly it bases authority on justification by performance.
Goal Setting
- What are the goals of your company? (and how can you better align yourself with this goal?)
- What are the goals of your department? (and how can you better align yourself with this goal?)
- What are the goals of your team? (and how can you better align yourself with this goal?)
By their fruits, ye shall know them. You are what you do. Do you know what you do?
Tags: peter drucker