There are a lot of similarities between quality guru Edward Deming’s thoughts on quality and my thoughts on FWP management.

Pitfalls of focusing solely on targets

“Where there is fear, there will be wrong figures.” Tying performance directly to targets can foster fear and shortcuts, leading to manipulated data or unhealthy competition instead of collaboration among employees.

In most frontline organisations, over 50% don’t achieve targets are branded under-performers which seriously demotivates them.

In a system focused solely on targets, people will game the system to meet metrics rather than truly improving performance. Now if you add the unscientific target setting prevalent currently, at the last mile, the problem becomes even more severe.

On the Dangers of Ranking and Categorizing People on only targets:

“Management by only outcomes or lag indicators is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror.”

Deming believed that focusing purely on end results (e.g., hitting performance targets) overshadows the journey of improvement.

Efforts to hit performance targets even with the best intentions can ruin long-term improvement if they don’t account for systemic improvements and instead focus on short-term gains or individual performance, at the cost of the overall organization.

Focus must be on continuous directional improvement instead of achieving the target

Focusing on continuous improvement and progress rather than a fixed target is more meaningful. It’s about directionally improving based on knowledge and learning, not merely hitting arbitrary benchmarks. Many incentive payouts are designed for achieving a minimum threshold and so many don’t get incentives. For a low and medium performer, reaching the target from where they are currently is like asking a person to do a high jump of over 6 feet when they can only jump 3 feet. So many don’t even attempt and prefer to quit. This is one of the main reasons for high attrition.

On systems approach to Improvement (Kaizen):

“A bad system will beat a good person every time.”

Deming argued that systemic issues, not individuals, are often the root cause of performance problems. By shifting focus from individual targets to trends and progress over time, you are emphasizing system improvement, which aligns with Deming’s teachings.

On doing the right things and doing it right:

“It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.”

People know when they are not performing. What they don’t know is, what they must do to change the scenario. They need to know what are the levers to performance and how to improve them. When they focus on these levers, performance outcomes improve automatically. I call this the Secrets of Success of performance and I have discovered it to be “critical task mastery “ in the role.

To achieve critical task mastery, you must know what the critical tasks are and how to execute them the right way. Lead Indicators of Performance (LIPs) are the daily outputs on these critical tasks which have a causal relationship with performance outcomes. Learning and implementing the SoS daily, is the pathway to continuous performance improvement.

Individual measurements is essential to performance improvement. “Throwing individual measurements along with individual targets is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.”

Conclusion

In line with Deming’s philosophy, the idea of using measurement to track trends and directional improvement instead of meeting specific targets encourage a more holistic and productive approach to performance. This methodology supports continuous improvement (a central tenet of Deming’s work) and moves away from the counterproductive effects of ranking and categorization.