they were capable of accomplishing. At that point
the goal has become the personal goal of your
subordinates.
Your second job is to work with your
subordinates to set a goal. Goals should be
realistic and attainable. When subordinates
participate in goal setting, they help to set the
standards and criteria you will use to evaluate their
performance in reaching that goal.
Advantages and Disadvantages
MBO provides some advantages over other
types of management styles. It involves subor-
dinates in setting goals, forces leaders to focus on
important objectives, increases communication,
and establishes measurable performance goals.
However, MBO also has some disadvantages.
An organization can use it only in certain
situations. It requires more time to use, increases
paperwork, and may overlook objectives that
cannot be measured. In addition, MBO will work
only if top leaders support it and people
communicate as required. When leaders don’t
support MBO, the disadvantages can cripple an
organization.
DETERMINING WORK
REQUIREMENTS AND
SETTING PRIORITIES
One of the most difficult and often overlooked
jobs of the chief petty officer is to determine
divisional work requirements and priorities. You
will find the work requirements in your division’s
strategic plans, rules and regulations, and single-
use plans. Once you have determined the require-
ments, you must determine the tasks needed to
complete them. Then you will set priorities based
on the order in which the division needs to
complete each task.
Determining Work Requirements
To determine work requirements, you need a
starting point to establish what your division is
presently accomplishing (the real situation) in
relation to what the division should be accom-
plishing (the ideal situation).
The work requirements your division should
be accomplishing are outlined in your command’s
strategic, standing, and single-use plans. You
should compare these work requirements to what
your division is currently accomplishing. You may
find your division is not following the work
requirements outlined in your command’s various
plans. In this case, you need to revise the
division work requirements to conform to the
command’s plans. Or you may find your division
has the correct work requirements, but the goals
for those requirements are not being met. In this
case, you need to revise the division’s goals for
accomplishing the work requirements.
The real-ideal model (fig. 3-2) is a flow chart
you can use in setting new goals for your division’s
work requirements. The exact sequence of setting
goals for work requirements should be done in
the following order:
Recognize the real situation in your
division.
Review strategic, standing, and single-use
plans to determine the ideal situation for
your division.
Figure 3-2.-Real-ideal model.
3-4
