Busting bureaucracy from the bottom up.

Targets of Excellence is an automated U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command business-management system that helps the manager to focus on what is critical and, at the same time, measures performance results. Targets can be used with any personal computer. It is designed for the activity level manager. Targets empowers the activity personnel, the ones who serve the customer, to be totally in charge of their own operation. Data is the foundation of this program and is developed to support performance. As assessments of performance are calculated, it is fed into the automated Targets system. Then, a graphic is provided that immediately depicts precisely where the activity is in relation to the goals.

How many times have you heard it said "If management would only stay out of my hair, I could focus on what's important." Or, "If my boss would stop looking over my shoulder, I could get my work done." This is bureaucracy at work, causing make work, and frustrating those employees who are charged with actually doing the work. Operating in this manner stands in the way of success and keeps us from focusing on what is really critical.

Experiencing Massive Change

Downsizing of the military places morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) in a very unique and challenging position. We are being faced with challenges never before experienced. A traditional reaction to this rapidly changing environment is to maintain status quo as best as possible and to salvage whatever we can. This type of thinking is deflationary at best and disastrous at worst.

This massive change we are experiencing offers a unique opportunity to reevaluate the way we have been doing business in the past and question the traditional hierarchy in which we have been so comfortably embedded. We must move out of our current paradigms and view the world from a different perspective. If MWR is to survive, we need to break away from the past. To regain competitive advantage, we must not rely on a one-time breakthrough, but rather on continual improvement. We must focus on the customer--specialize in customer needs. Each business unit (service/ product) must focus on the core business and do it exceptionally well. We must adopt the philosophy, "never good enough." We must move from just satisfying the customer to delighting the customer so that they will seek our services and products over and over again. "if it's not broke, don't fix it" does not apply any longer. Targets philosophy insists "if it's not broke, make it better."

The need for a new way of thinking created Targets. In addition, Targets is a highly effective way to implement Total Quality Management (TQM). As we researched commercial business organizations involved with TQM, we found their organizations to be flatter, with fewer organizational layers. Business units were allowed to be more autonomous, oriented toward value-added goods/services. They are responsive and quick to innovate. Their workforce is composed of highly trained, flexible people. Workers and managers are viewed as equal partners in servicing customers. Targets embraces that philosophy and much, much more.

Using the values that TQM espouses, a corporate culture change becomes necessary--a slow, tedious process, unless a miracle is just around the corner. This is especially true in a military environment, steeped in tradition and the very definition of bureaucracy itself. What Targets does is use positive aspects of the system as a solution; i.e., the local unit activities are face-to-face with the customer and thus closest to the market. Targets positions the employee, such as the bowling manager, or the fitness center manager, who is directly involved with the customer, to exercise unlimited authority to do whatever necessary to support that customer. This grassroots activity manager is in the very best position to establish quality and value-added programs for customers. The strategy of establishing standards of quality must be set at this level. Managers know what is critical to the success of their operation.

Targets reduces fragmentation of effort by employing a system to organize critical success elements. The foundation for these elements are best framed by developing categories similar to those developed by the Malcom Baldridge Award System. These categories contain the elements of a total operation--leadership, information and analysis, strategic quality planning, human resources, quality assurance of products/services, quality results and customer satisfaction. The Targets of Excellence process, while simple, is very comprehensive, with focus on quality and the customer.

An activity performance team, composed of managers and employees, identifies the critical success factors (CSF) for their activity by category. CSFs must be definable, measurable and easily understood. Each category is then composed of CSFs that the manager actually identifies and measures. The activity team then defines the standard of excellence (goal) for each. After determining how the goal is measured, the process/actions that lead to the goal are outlined, so there is now a strategy for success.

Data is collected during business activity and inputted to the automated Targets system. The system then provides an immediate graphic display of how the activity is performing in relation to the goal the activity manager/ supervisor sets for the operation. We can immediately ascertain activity performance graphically and by a data printout. The manager can then reassess business activity in real time to define improvements in the process. When we achieve our goals, the activity performance team does not lir back and bask in its success, but sets about establishing new goals. Perfection can never be achieved, but quality can always be improved.

Performance-Based Standard

The Targets system allows the manager to systemize goal data and see graphically the activity's performance results. Improvement is a result of setting a performance-based standard understood by all (employees, upper level management), studying the process, and measuring results. The employees are empowered to make changes in the processes that generate improvement.

Managers at all levels and commanders can measure improvement and identify weaknesses. They can then target resources to improve identified weaknesses. This is a significant improvement over the existing shotgun approach to problem solving. Effort is now totally focused on improving performance, thus creating a successful operation. Management does not have to waste time looking for areas to improve; they are now easily and readily identified.

The whole process can be summarized as follows: The activity defines itself and determines what is critical for success, sets targets, works toward achievement, supports effort with quantitative data, and immediately rewards success with a visual presentation, all supported by the onsite system.

Further, each activity can report performance to all levels of supervision in the installation management. Managers can then look at each activity autonomously, by directorate, or a composite performance for the installation as a whole. This enables installation managers to immediately identify outliers; i.e., where weaknesses occur, and devote prompt attention as necessary.

With Targets all elements for success can be assessed simultaneously rather than individually. In the past, we usually focused on the bottom line.

Why is Targets of Excellence such a terrific vehicle for moving out of status quo and into the future? Simply attaining a goal or standard is no longer enough. Lowest price, highest quality, best service soon becomes the standard for all competitors. The real key is continuous improvement. We live in an environment today where change is the norm. It is both pervasive and persistent. Companies designed to thrive on stability cannot succeed in a world where success is measured by flexibility and quick response. With Targets, change is used as a springboard rather than something to contend with. That springboard is the continuous improvement of the process that produces goods/services, not the goods/services themselves.

Focus On What Is Critical

We must renew our competitive capabilities. But is going head-to-head with like companies going to equal success in the future? We all can roll up our sleeves and work harder to beat our competition, but people soon tire of working harder. What Targets proposes is: do not work harder, learn to work differently. Compete with yourself. Focus on what is critical for success and do not waste valuable effort on things that do not matter.

Targets can quickly revolutionize the way we do business. It supplies the tools necessary to transition MWR (and any business for that matter) into the 21st century. It places the activity level managers back in charge of their own destiny--setting their own goals and standards, striving for continuous improvement, and thus delighting the customer. Is that not the way it should be?