Goals as Triggers: An Outcome-Process Matrix

Goals are an essential part of life for individuals as well as organizations. Goal setting is an important mechanism for development. In individuals it reflects leadership to take charge of one’s life and live optimally. In organizations it reflects a leadership capability to drive the organization on development path. Goals that are easy to achieve and will, anyway, happen in the natural course are not goals truly in a developmental sense. Goals which require planning, generation and deployment of resources, and which involve complex managerial processes are usual goals in an organizational sense. Goals by themselves are meaningless without they becoming outcomes, and outcomes are impossible without dedicated efforts. Aspirational adrenalin and situational stress are two important components of the journey towards converting goals into outcomes.

Goalsetting by itself is an emotional trigger. For some, setting mild easily achievable goals acts as a relief while setting lofty and tough-to-achieve goals could be stressful. For others, the reverse can be true. Outcomes, apart from the developmental satisfaction of achieving, involve emotional outcomes too. There are many components that vest in goals the stress dimension or lack of it. Time is the most impactful component. There is no linear correlation, positive or inverse, between factors supporting goal achievement and actual achievement of goals. It is not necessarily true that few is better for goals and more is better for resources for smooth goal achievement. It is this complexity that makes the theory of goals a challenging one. This blog post proposes a simple outcome-process matrix to understand the goal theory.

Goal-resource conundrum

Many advise that fewer goals make for better accomplishment. In matter of practice, there is nothing like being able to live with fewer goals. Even a singular goal has a cascade of goals. A singular goal like “I should join medicine” has several goals like “getting top ranks in certain qualifying subjects”, “getting top marks in the qualifying entrance examination”, “arranging resources for the costly medical study” and “preparing with the family for separation into hostel life” etc. In respect of organizational goals, there is never anything like singular goal. Something as singular as “we want to achieve the highest market share at X percent” has to be viewed really as a cascade of goals even at business level, let alone at each functional level. The goals would cascade into revenue, cost and profit goals at the business level, and each of these will further cascade into functional goals. Each organizational goal has a hierarchy of goals. And, some of the goals could conflict each other too!

Resources are also complex to decipher. The law of proportionality does not work beyond a point. When a company has a design, manufacturing or quality issue just throwing more people into the ring to solve the issues would not help. In certain situations, quality rather than quantity would be more important. In certain other cases, just giving more time (time being a very important resource) would help. Resources are, more often than not, are shared. In most cases, the impact of doing or not undertaking an activity or not providing a resource allocation would have its impact much later. Relating goals and resources uniquely, in a defined time frame, therefore is a problem in itself. Budgeting is a process to regulate resource allocation but it is a set of numbers. Achievement of goals, and the process thereto, is an emotional ownership journey. The outcomes and process interact in a way that ownership comes with a tinge of emotions.

Outcome classification

Outcomes are basically of two types; those that are potentially feasible and those that are seemingly unworkable. For example, in a market duopoly where both the players have equal share, it would be potentially feasible for one of the players to aim at a 75 percent market share. However, aiming at 95 percent market share would certainly seem to be unworkable. On the other hand, in the same duopoly, if the shares are 10 and 90 percent, it would be potentially feasible for the 10 percent player to become a 20 percent player or a 90 percent player to further become a 95 percent player. It would certainly seem to be unworkable for the 10 percent player to become a 90 percent player, however. In a way, the feasibility or otherwise of outcomes is contextual, depending on organizational, technological, market and environmental conditions. More importantly, it is a function of passage of time impacting these dynamics.

It would have been impossible to conceive of a smart phone which can be assembled and disassembled to suit different functionalities in user’s hands. The first step towards that has been made with LG G5 modular phone which enables upgrade of certain functionalities with addition of certain modules.  Google Ara with its Lego like phone construction which seemed infeasible prior to LG G5 suddenly becomes feasible now. Travel en masse to other planets and setting up human colonies would seem infeasible even today but could become feasible in a few decades. Visionary leaders set goals which are not easily visible to people reasonably versed in current state-of-the-art. Feasibility or otherwise depends on the processes adopted to work towards such goals. 

Process classification

The processes for achievement of goals are of two basic types; those that are carried out as they are instructed to be performed and those that are performed with experimentation. For example, most processes followed in most organizations by most individuals are all instructed processes. The advantages of process instructions are evident; they lead to repeatability and consistency with predictable results. They allow quality checks to be performed at key stages. Instructional processes promote learning, and lead to productivity. Well instructed people tend to be compliant and focused. Certain goals benefit immensely by instructed processes; in general, goals in industries with high safety risks or quality variations are better off by following instructional processes.  In goal setting, however, certain processes have to be extrapolated or creatively constructed; yet in instructional processes these are also codified.

Experimental processes are those processes which are generally first time processes. In certain aspects of business, experimental processes become inevitable. Most R&D goals can be achieved only with experimental processes. Market positioning of new products requires experimentation with consumer preferences. Even in a manufacturing setup, certain experimental processes would have to be gone through before standards can be established. Experimentation of even standardised processes occurs in empowered organizations which seek continuous improvements.  Experimental processes which are successful bring pride and ownership to the developers. Tolerance to mistakes is an essential requirement for successful evolution of experimental processes. When goals are lofty, resources thrifty and timelines tricky, experimental processes are the better option. Typically, not all individuals may be well suited to experimental processes.

Outcome-process matrix   

  

As mentioned earlier, outcomes and processes constitute a matrix. Depending on whether the outcomes are potentially feasible or seemingly unworkable and whether processes are instructional or experimental, four grids get formed which influence the emotional stress or satisfaction that gets generated. The four grids are: (i) feasible outcome-instructional process, (ii) feasible outcome-experimental process, (iii) unworkable outcome-instructional process, and (iv) unworkable outcome-experimental process. Each of the combinations leads to different levels of stress and satisfaction levels. A stress-free situation occurs when outcome is considered feasible and people just follow instructions. In this situation, the stress of failure is on the lower scale. When the outcome is considered feasible but people need to experiment their way to the expected outcomes, there would be a positive stress and joy of discovery through experimentation.

When the combination is that of unworkable outcome and instructional process, there would be dissatisfaction of failed goal but there will be lack of guilt that the failure has occurred in spite of following instructions. The grid of unworkable outcome and experimental process is all the more stressful and dissatisfying due to outcome failure and guilt of failed process discovery.  This does not mean that the feasible outcome-instructional process grid is the best solution, and others lead to stress and dissatisfaction in varying degrees. In fact, the driver for industry leading growth is to be seen in terms of making the impossible possible and exploring the unexplored processes through experimentation.    

Impossible to possible

There are two simple steps to pursue the impossible to possible even when the route to achieve is completely unknown. The first step is to put in place a base case wherein an aspirational but feasible target that can be achieved in a well-planned manner is set out. The next step is to stretch the feasible to seemingly unworkable level and leave it to the team to explore their way to achievement. This enables the team to bring out their best to achieve the impossible with their ownership of processes, with the full knowledge and confidence that a backup is feasible and permissible. This approach is particularly relevant in space exploration, drug discovery, deep sea exploration, polar expeditions, and the like, where the impossible and unexplored can be pursued with the fall-back in play (space ship can be brought back after testing out the trajectory, exploration targets can be moved after the unknowns are discovered, molecules can be re-purposed after initial failures etc.,).   

Positive marginal stress and emotional ownership are critical factors that differentiate industry-leading teams from industry-average teams. Seemingly unworkable goals and hitherto unexplored pathways are well in order if the leadership understands how to inspire the team members on the discovery path. Ideally, if individuals are also hardwired to be unguided achievers of the impossible from their early educational and career days, the possibility of seeking and accomplishing the impossible becomes real in an organizational setting. Leaders in organizations, teachers in schools and colleges and parents in families have a responsibility of standing by the goal seekers in this process. The dividing line between positive stress and negative burnout on one hand and exhilaration of achieving the impossible and the disappointment of slipping from the peak on the other hand are too powerful to be left unattended.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on May 25, 2016    

Harnessing Emotions at Workplace: The Model of Intelligent Emotional Balance (IEB)

Emotions are strong feelings that people have.  Emotions can be positive as well as negative. Typical emotions, positive and negative, are happiness and sadness, liking and disliking, calmness and anger, politeness and bluntness, confidence and fear, friendship and enmity, trust and mistrust, kindness and jealousy, gentleness and aggression, so on. Given that organizations are nothing but groups of people, it is but natural that emotions are a part and parcel of a typical workplace. The emotional profile of a manager or a leader, in fact, gets identified as a dominant characteristic of a manager or a leader as his or her management and leadership style, and becomes a visible and consistently felt experience for the larger organization. There is often a misplaced view that in organizations negative emotions must necessarily be eliminated and positive emotions mandatorily embedded at the work place. This is a simplistic view of how business processes and organizational behaviors work.

There have been several theories of emotions from the centuries’ prior days of Aristotle to the contemporary days of Stephen Covey, highlighting the need to understand human emotions and for achieving mastery over emotions. In fact, the phrases “emotional balance”, “emotional quotient” and “emotional intelligence” have spawned several journal articles and management books on how executives could achieve mastery over their emotions to be effective at the workplace. Important as these are, there is a need to view emotional management at the workplace in terms of intelligent business process management rather than only as an introverted framework of behavioral correction. Fundamental to the concern on management of emotions is the fact that emotions could affect rational thinking and actions. The paradox of human emotions is rendered more complex when organizations are expected to be embodiments of logical and rational approaches in the conduct of their businesses on one hand, while being driven by hues of emotion such as aggression and passion in achieving superior performance on the other.

Contextual

For most part, emotions need contexts to express themselves. The contextual basis of emotions is that the gap between expectations and accomplishments sets the tone for emotions. If the leader is a stickler for perfection, a perfect process or a perfect outcome from his subordinate makes him or her happy while a shoddy process and outcome makes the leader angry. In the same interaction, if the subordinate knows what perfection is, he or she would display confidence or fear while presenting the process or product. From the simple example that has been considered, it is clear that emotions emerge from the gaps between that exist between expectations and outcomes. The other contextual part of emotions is that people come into organizations as bundles of emotions themselves. In addition, people tend to be of different personality types which will invariably influence how people emote at the workplace. Many employees also do not adequately understand the nexus between their individual roles and performance and corporate goals and outcomes, and anticipate rewards independent of performance. The alignment or gap between career objectives and career growth also leads to emotional dynamics.

Emotions are sharpened by the way they are expressed.  The culture of expression, if it is positive enhances the helpful impact of positive emotions and moderates the erosive impact of negative emotions. The culture of expression, if negative, achieves exactly the opposite. The expressions of verbal language, positive or negative, are further accentuated positively or attenuated negatively by the body language, positive or negative. The part that communication plays in moderating or amplifying emotions is not well understood. Effective and controlled communication is part of emotional balance in organizations. Emotions are not necessarily correlated to circumstances. Crisis situations, contrary to perceptions of chaos, helplessness and stress, may actually bring out positive emotions of sharing and caring, and of strength and stability amongst the team members. On the other hand, luxurious outcomes may bring out negative emotions of envy and jealousy, and of mistrust and aggression among them. The paradox of the contextual perspectives is that emotions are impacted by a number of internal and external contexts.

It is also incorrect to assume that positive emotions are always beneficial and negative ones detrimental. If team members are not mature enough and instead are subservient to emotions in appraising performance, performance management would be at a discount. In such cases, people may get formatted into emotional archetypes as they and their supervisors lack the ability to differentiate task delivery from emotional wrapping. Emotions, whether positive or negative, are likely to introduce skew, bias and halo effects in relationships if emotions are not objectively and discriminatingly expressed or understood. Emotional balancing may help the groups manage positive or negative performance in a stable manner only if emotional expression is indexed to the context of task delivery of individuals, teams and organizations. If managers and teams, as well as cross-functional peers ensure clear target setting with joint ownership, clarity and alignment on objectives and resources and evaluation criteria, the chances for emotional upheavals, positive or negative, would be minimized. 

Another hypothesis could be that industry context would determine the emotional texture of an organization. Market and customer facing organizations may be postulated to be more emotionally sensitive compared to manufacturing organizations. Domains like advertising and consumer research may be considered to be more emotionally interactive than others. In practice, however, emotional sensitivity and responsiveness is related more to expectations-accomplishments gap and expressions-communications competency levels, independent of any domain or industry. The organizations and team members of the movie industry which is dominated by emotive artistic elements in all its aspects, for example, has all the interpersonal emotional fallibilities as any other industrial organization; if at all, the movie industry seems to have an even greater level of emotional dynamics. 

Tolerances and controls

As in engineering design, the theory of tolerances plays a vital role in emotional management too. People, in the organizational context, must observe tolerances in mutual expression of emotions. While not all emotions may be appropriate in an organizational context, there are a few which have relevance. While a gentle, trusting, caring, sharing and joyous emotional outlook may enhance positive energy in a team, excessive levels of such positive emotions could be counter-productive. While fun at work is desirable, it cannot be only fun at work to the detriment of stretch and challenge at work. At the same time, an aggressive, evaluative, demanding, consolidating and somber emotional outlook may bring out the right amount of fear and adrenal rush in the face of adversity or complacence. While fear is the key to compliance and achievement, fearful authoritarianism cannot be endorsed to the detriment of creativity and innovation at work. Clearly, only if teams are able to play upon their positive and negative emotions within fine tolerances that are synergistic in organizational context, emotions can be helpful.    

At the core of intelligent emotional balance lies the ability to understand the emotional sensitivity of self and others, and develop the ability to control the emergence and expression of emotions in organizationally appropriate manner. This approach does not mean that people should or would lose their spontaneity. It merely recognizes that an organization has certain primary performance metrics to deliver on a day to day basis. A culture of emotional sensitivity, in fact, helps the team modulate performance expectations and delivery achievements. The model of intelligent emotional balance has three vital components; the first, understanding the importance of a person’s own and his team members’ emotional proclivities,  the second, an understanding of the tolerances within which mutual emotions become synergistic rather than antagonistic and the third, a competence to control emotions to be supportive of a virtuous organizational culture. An ability to retain rationality, objectivity and logic in the face of exciting opportunities and depressing setbacks alike with the just right touch of humanism helps spread the positive vibrations of energy across the organization.

IEB model in practice

An organization can achieve intelligent emotional balance when its leaders practice the optimal business processes that enable a sense of fulfillment in day to day work and thereby enabling appropriate emotional balance.  The optimum business process does not end merely with objective setting or questioning but incorporates problem solving where required.  A leader who sets a challenging technical task for his subordinate logically expects the subordinate to deliver, failing which finds it rational to take the subordinate to task. The IEB model, in this case, expects that the leader does not merely stop at expressing his unhappiness but also empathizes with the subordinate’s incapacity to deliver and sets about to work with the subordinate to develop a solution. Once the subordinate develops the solution to the leader’s satisfaction, the leader joyously celebrates with the subordinate, thus wiping clean the earlier unhappiness and opening a new chapter of collaboration.  In another case where the subordinate succeeds in terms of delivery, the leader celebrates with the subordinate first but goes on to prescribe a higher level of challenge for the subordinate that leads the organization onto a path of continuous achievement and fulfillment.

A purely emotional view of achievement leads to a sense of complacence and distances the participants from the competitive scenario that exists in the outside business world. Setting expectations appropriately, reinforcing competencies commensurately, providing resources adequately, evaluating results objectively, coaching for improved results empathetically, learning from failures confidently and celebrating successes with humility provides an optimal intelligent emotional balance in an organization. The leaders and managers can help facilitate institution of intelligent emotional balance by being themselves role models of the following: (i) equidistance from, or equal attachment to, functions and people, (ii) adaptive of rational and emotionally balanced objective business and communication processes, (iii) focused on competency development and task delivery, (iv) controlled and titrated in experiencing and expression of emotions, (v) learning openly from setbacks and failures, and (vi) optimally celebrating successes with humility. The foregoing leadership model would help institutionalize the broader Intelligent Emotional Balance (IEB) model on a sustainable basis in the organization.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on March 10, 2013