Objectives

Objectives must be derived from “what our business is, what it will be, and what it should be.” They are not abstractions. They are the action commitments through which the mission of a business is to be carried out, and the standards against which performance is to be measured. Objectives, in other words, represent the fundamental strategy of a business.⊕ (Drucker 2008, chap. 3)

Objectives must make possible concentration of resources and efforts. They must winnow out the fundamentals amoung the goals of a business so that the key resources of men, money, and physical facilities can be constructed. They must, therefore, be selective rather than encompass everything.⊕ (Drucker 2008, chap. 3)

The proper way to use objectives is the way an airline uses schedules and flight plans. The schedule provides for the 9:00 a.m. flight from Los Angeles to get to Boston by 5:00 p.m. But if there is a blizzard in Boston that day, the plane will land in Pittsburgh instead and wait out the storm. … [yet] Unless 97 percent or so of its flights proceed on the orginal schedule and flight plan – or within a very limited range of deviation from either – a well-run airline gets another operations manager who knows his job.⊕ (Drucker 2008, chap. 3)

Objectives are not fate; they are directions. They are not commands; they are commitments. They do not determine the future; they are means to mobilize the resources and energies of the business for the making of the future.⊕ (Drucker 2008, chap. 3)