Question

Fully explain what you understand by the term Management By Objectives, and critically discuss at least five (5) of its features.

Answer 1

Management by objectives is a performance enhancement tool which is used in an organization to increase the participation of employees and have greater commitment from the employees. In this method, the objectives for the employees and the overall organization is framed based on a participative process and which has the buy in of both the employees and the management.

The five advantages of this method are:

• The employees feel greater participation in this process of goal and objective setting and thus management is able to drive objectives better because of a greater buy in.
• It can motivate employees to contribute more since they are also involved in the decision making process.
• This is a more democratic decision making process and also more transparent thus ensuring greater communication across the organization.
• It can inspire the organization’s workforce to a large extent as compared to a top-down decision process.
• Also it can lead to faster organization growth and lead less monitoring and control.