Goals gone wild

A propósito do artigo "Goals Gone Wild" na revista Business Week, e na senda do ditado "Volume is Vanity, Profit is Sanity" este trecho deveria entrar na cabeça de muito boa gente:
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"it wasn’t too long ago that GM executives wore buttons with the number “29” as a constant reminder of the company’s lofty goal of reaching U.S. market share of that level. Six years later, the researchers comment, GM’s U.S. market share is below 20%, and the company faces bankruptcy at least in part due to too much emphasis on that goal. “In GM’s case the relentless pursuit of market share came at the expense of profitability,” Schweitzer noted."
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No entanto, o que me ficou mesmo na mente foi um comentário de um leitor, eis o excerto que me interessa:
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"Dr. Lloyd Nelson in Edwards Deming book "Out of the Crisis" stated that "If you can improve productivity, or sales, or quality, or anything else, by (e.g.,) five percent next year without a rational plan for improvement, then why were you not doing it last year?" (esta postura mental é tão comum... estabelecer objectivos de desempenho superiores sem querer mudar nada na realidade. Esquecendo que o desempenho é sempre um produto natural do funcionamento de uma organização, e que se queremos desempenhos futuros diferentes teremos de ter uma organização diferente)
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If we consider how executives and others are very often given recognition and rewarded on meeting "Y" response output goals without consideration that improvements need to be made to the overall system in order to achieve long-lasting healthy improved performance. A management style of variance to goals can be considered "management by hope," and can lead to playing games with the numbers that result in very destructive behaviors to meet short-term objectives (i.e., Enron effect). "