# Getting Lost in the Details By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-02-15 Goals, objectives, and key performance indicators are hallmarks of modern management. If you operate without them, you are a poor manager or organization. In some ways, this feels true. Knowing where you are going and what progress means feels better than just moving to move. Purpose and intention define what we consider a good or bad life. However, rarely does any person or organization we consider good or ideal measure and track the details. If anything, they operate on core principles and values that ignore the specific. For example, take the golden rule: treat others as you want to be treated. This says nothing about what to do if someone continues to take advantage of you. Should you let the bullying continue and treat them with respect? When these situations arise, we tend to create more and more rules, measures, and indicators that venture further away from the original intent and things we hold up as good. Within organizations, management operates the same way. An organization might have principles, values, and a top-level goal, but modern management is obsessed with ensuring that every detail and team has specific goals and rules to govern all the details. People quickly lose sight of the real goal. All we can see is that bug on the tree in the endless forest burning down around us. The objective changes from achieving the intended purpose to political and power manipulation of obtuse and pointless performance metrics that add up to nothing other than showing how well you can play the game. This says nothing about the challenges involved with discerning whether any goal or rule is correct in the first place. At this point, it doesn't even matter. All purpose and intention get lost in the details. Some senior leaders may attempt to bring the organization out of it, but it's not about focus and attention. The problem is the system itself. You can spend all your energy fighting the system's default operation to stay focused on a purpose, or you can create a new system. Creation is dangerous. The status quo is great if you are lucky and end up on top. #### Related Items [[Management]] [[Goals]] [[Objectives]] [[Systems Thinking]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[Details]]