DETERMINING WORK REQUIREMENTS AND SETTING PRIORITIES

they were capable of accomplishing. At that point the goal has become the personal goal of your subordinates. Your second job is to work with your subordinates to set a goal. Goals should be realistic and attainable. When subordinates participate in goal setting, they help to set the standards and criteria you will use to evaluate their performance in reaching that goal. Advantages and Disadvantages MBO provides some advantages over other types of management styles. It involves subor- dinates in setting goals, forces leaders to focus on important objectives, increases communication, and establishes measurable performance goals. However, MBO also has some disadvantages. An organization can use it only in certain situations. It requires more time to use, increases paperwork, and may overlook objectives that cannot be measured. In addition, MBO will work only if top leaders support it and people communicate as required. When leaders don’t support MBO, the disadvantages can cripple an organization. DETERMINING WORK REQUIREMENTS AND SETTING PRIORITIES One of the most difficult and often overlooked jobs of the chief petty officer is to determine divisional work requirements and priorities. You will find the work requirements in your division’s strategic plans, rules and regulations, and single- use plans. Once you have determined the require- ments, you must determine the tasks needed to complete them. Then you will set priorities based on the order in which the division needs to complete each task. Determining Work Requirements To determine work requirements, you need a starting point to establish what your division is presently accomplishing (the real situation) in relation to what the division should be accom- plishing (the ideal situation). The work requirements your division should be accomplishing are outlined in your command’s strategic, standing, and single-use plans. You should compare these work requirements to what your division is currently accomplishing. You may find your division is not following the work requirements outlined in your command’s various plans. In this case, you need to revise the division work requirements to conform to the command’s plans. Or you may find your division has the correct work requirements, but the goals for those requirements are not being met. In this case, you need to revise the division’s goals for accomplishing the work requirements. The real-ideal model (fig. 3-2) is a flow chart you can use in setting new goals for your division’s work requirements. The exact sequence of setting goals for work requirements should be done in the following order: Recognize the real situation in your division. Review strategic, standing, and single-use plans to determine the ideal situation for your division. Figure 3-2.-Real-ideal model. 3-4