The Absurdity of Targets

I've been meaning to write this entry for a while, as it's a particular aspect of systems thinking I feel passionate about. The theme today is how setting targets does not drive improved performance and can instead create perverse behaviours in the attempts to achieve them. I've chosen to use a personal example here to illustrate my point, rather than a work-based one.


A few years ago I joined Slimming World in an attempt to lose some weight. I went along to the first meeting full of trepidation at what this plan would involve, but after hearing so many success stories and picking up the cheery vibes I was convinced of its reputation and made the commitment to give it a go.

I won't liken my body to a temple (unless you want to compare it to the ruins of Greece or Mayan culture!) but rather a complex organic system involving thousands of biochemical processes. My purpose in joining SW was to lose weight and to do that it advocated a radical change in diet towards eating healthily. My processes of consumption were "redesigned" - shopping habits altered from a mad dash around the supermarket, avoiding temptation from aisle-offers, to planning all the meals for the week in advance, writing a shopping list accordingly and sticking to it! Cooking methods also changed: olive oil was swapped for fry-lite and weekend breakfasts were grill-ups instead of fry-ups.


These "new" processes interacted in combination to change the output of the system. On my first weigh-in I was delighted to learn I'd lost half a stone that week. Motivated by my achievement I stayed on for the round circle group session, also known as "image therapy". This involved the consultant reading out your weight loss that week followed by a discussion of how you felt it went, concluding with setting yourself a target weight loss for the coming week.


I noticed whilst staying to this session there were mixed successes: some people gained weight, some people stayed the same but the majority did actually lose weight - I'd have been discouraged if that were not the case! The people who stayed the same or gained usually knew the reasons why. I amounted this to variation from the standard process - they hadn't followed the plan 100% because it had been someone's birthday and there was cake, or their husband had left them so they had drunk a bit too much at the weekend (to celebrate, of course).


Over the next few weeks I was fortunate to lose more weight, but soon I became bored with the rigidity of the plan and consequently strayed on occasions. This inevitably led to a weight gain, but I philosophised this was part of the weight loss "journey" - instead of going straight to my destination I was taking the scenic route!


Now the really interesting observation from all this was not how I reacted to the weight gain (or loss) in itself, but rather how that compared to the target set the week before at the inquiry of the consultant. I noticed myself feeling the same pattern of emotions depending on the outcome of the week's weigh in:

• If I had gained weight and so not met my target it made me feel like a failure. I questioned the success of the plan, my commitment to it and failed to take into account the success of the journey so far. Many times I would have thrown away all my hard work based on missing just one target!

• If I had lost weight but not met my target then I felt a mixture of disappointment at not achieving it. This distracted me from the fact that I had lost weight that week and undermined that achievement. I then felt guilty for feeling bad instead of celebrating, particularly when the group congratulated me.

• If I had lost weight and met my target then I felt infused with a renewed enthusiasm, a euphoria and a confidence that I could achieve anything. It either led to cockiness as I set myself a higher than normal target (possibly even unrealistic) as a challenge, or if there were lots of weight gains then I played down the achievement, again undermining it.

Because of the negative feelings of failure, disappointment, guilt, wavering commitment, I began to alter my behaviour in the days between meetings. Firstly, I committed the cardinal sin when trying to lose weight as I became obsessed with the scales and weighed myself every day and at different times of the day to try to understand what affected my weight. This meant instead of following the standard processes of healthy eating, I could cheat! So if I had a "bad" day then the next one I ate very little by way of restitution. I also chose lighter clothes for my weigh in after a bad week, heavier clothes if I thought I could get away with it without showing a gain. (There are many more examples.....)


In this way it made a mockery of what the scales were really measuring, and consequently whether I had truly met my target or not. But the cycle continued week in, week out.


Eventually I plucked up the courage to take a stand and said to the consultant that I no longer wanted to set a target. She seemed a little taken aback but conferred it was my prerogative to do so. The reason I stopped setting myself interim targets was because it was distracting me from the end goal: a weekly target of losing 1-2lbs compared to a *however-long-it-took* goal of c. 6 stone: the latter goal was my idea of "perfection", when I would be happy with my weight.


As a result of removing the targets I stopped beating myself up on weeks when I gained. I left meetings feeling as if a line had been drawn in the sand, and that the next day was a new beginning. I placed my overall end goal in sight instead of arbitrary interim targets. My positivity made it easier to stick to the plan, by being kinder to myself and more realistic.


In a future blog entry I will explore how understanding the capability of the system by measuring what is really happening is a much better way of understanding processes and facilitating change accordingly, rather than setting arbitrary targets.