Everything at UPS must be measured. Even if nothing is going to be done, even if we don't plan to do anything, we must be able to quantify it.
It is one of the most exasperating aspects of being in Management at UPS.
We measure stuff that is unrelated to doing an effective and efficient job because it can be measured because the things that are really important can't be quantified.
We measure all kind of stuff that you would never do if you ran your own business. And in this time of "doing more with less" all the wasted time coming up with numbers decreases our ability to do a quality job.
Okay, enough of management ranting.
The problem is not the measurement.
The problem is when, (to quote Pretzel man) the number itself becomes more important than the business element it ws intented to measure.
This mentality creates the all-too-common situations where we will spend $50 to save a dime...because that dime is showing up on
our report while the $50 is showing up on someone
elses report.
If you want to get promoted at UPS you must either make yourself look better on paper, or make an internal rival look worse. The path to promotion is therefore often totally seperate from the path to running a smooth and profitable operation.
The solution? Compensation for management people should be based upon years served rather than level attained. Otherwise, you run into the "Dilbert" principle, whereby all persons in an organization rise to their level of incompetence rather than remaining at their level of excellence.
A competent and capable center manager should be allowed to do what he/she does best...manage a center...rather than have to exceed his/her capabilities in a futile attempt to climb the ladder and make more money.
Fearful people make stupid decisions. People whose jobs are threatened for failing to look good on paper or produce the desired measurements will often make utterly ridiculous decisions in the name of self-preservation. Running the business takes a back seat to covering one's ass, and the entire operation becomes dysfunctional as a result.
There needs to be a much higher level of job security for operations-level management. Quit holding an axe over their heads for failure to generate impossible statistics, and instead
trust and empower them to make the
right decisions instead of the ones that make them look good "on paper".