| I was thinking of results less in terms of management imperatives (re-organizations and the like) than achieving the mandated goals. Good management practice delegates projects, and does not tell the responsible parties how to accomplish the task. Rather, goals are set, and the responsible parties figure out how to meet them, in consultation with management, developing budgets, staffing requirements, and timetables. To the extent that they have to make reasonable requests, and get upper management to sign off, the line managers are limited, but otherwise, they are in control of the assigned project. In the end, they are judged on the timeliness with which the goals are met, keeping in mind that they are estimates, and that there may be uncontrollable factors in play. Generalizing, a police force is judged on its clearance rate, and the general trend of crime statistics, in comparison with other jurisdictions (as benchmarks); the military is judged by fitness, and by its actual performance in battle; and so on. This can be extended to administrative goals, of course, although you are right, politics often blurs matters. Still, at some point, people can count. It is a matter of record that most of the claimed drop in personnel numbers of the Gore task force was a result of military downsizing, not general reigning in of government. It is a matter of record that Clinton never got 100,000 cops on the street, but, in the end, got about 60,000, many of whom ended up in desk assignments. There is only so much spinning that can be done if the goals are clear and measurable...... |
