Deming

Targets: Seek and Destroy!

Jim Laughton

09 Nov 2025 — 2 min read

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Exciting news, Metallica are performing in Doha at the end of November, part of the F1.

Plus you might have noticed I’m weaving in musical references to my articles, whenever I can.

Today’s Readwise highlight is about seeking a target and the destruction that follows! Metaphorically speaking.

Targets from thin air. Magic 🪄

How do you define a target as part of an aim statement?

‘Bob Lloyd’s Fallacy of Fives’ is a phrase I coined from my times learning from and teaching with Bob (aka Robert Lloyd, check out his numerous articles for Institute of Healthcare Improvement and books). Fascinating that when we see targets set, they are almost always multiples of 5: 100%, 95%, 75% etc.

So if the target is set based on fantasy, how can we expect their achievement sometimes to be anything but science fiction?

There are so many ways to achieve targets. Hide defects, double count, move inventory, create waiting lists for waiting lists. None reflect the reality of the situation, nobody knows the true state, nobody can try to improve the system. This destroys.

Annual performance reviews are an example of misplaced targets and ranking, competition to reap limited resources (as bonuses, promotions) to the detriment of others.

There are better ways

For now, stop plucking targets from thin air. Start by looking at the current performance of your process, what it is capable of producing. Use that to define a target, make it a little stretch, but don’t demotivate employees by making it impossible.

Aim for perfection as your vision, trigger continual improvement, and accept that it is unfair to penalise employees for not achieving perfection. Reward the drive for continual improvement, testing change ideas, lessons learned, the approach (focus on improving the process, not results).

References

Liker JK, Ross K. The Toyota Way to Service Excellence: Lean Transformation in Service Organizations. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2016.
Buy on Amazon (Affiliate link - thank you for the support).

Carey RG. Lloyd RC. Measuring Quality Improvement in Healthcare: A Guide to Statistical Process Control Applications. Milwaukee (WI): American Society for Quality Press; 1995.
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Lloyd RC. Quality Health Care: A Guide to Developing and Using Indicators. Burlington (MA): Jones & Bartlett Learning; 2019.
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