1/2 Last week I had an eye-opening mentorship session with

Deli Matsuo

on the topic of performance management: despite my efforts to gain a better understanding of the topic, I missed a key part which

Deli

was able to spot immediately.

When

hashtag

OKR

was created by Intel, what other management models were commonly adopted? In the end, if the existing solution to a problem works, while would you create a new one?

“Management by objectives” or MBOs was the most common: you establish goals, you attach metrics and you reward the achievement of those metrics. Originated from all sales-based organizations, MBO took traction in HP and was popularized by Peter Drucker in 1954. It worked great for all activities that have high predictability: if you have a factory and few underperforming people, the more measurement there is, the more you can understand and take actions.

So, what was Intel problem with MBO? If you adopt

hashtag

MBO

to reward a new AI project in a bank, where the risk of failure is high, how many people will want to participate in a project which will cause them to lose their annual bonus? Adopting MBO universally in an organization means people will only put themselves on target they can achieve and this will kill

hashtag

innovation

.