A hurdle that many new BSC users / practitioners must confront is the confusion associated with the term "Objective" as it is used within the context of a balanced scorecard. This confusion stems from the learning concept of the Law of Primacy which essentially states “what is first learned is best learned”.  Association with the term previously used in a similar, yet distinct manner, causes interference with the listeners or learners ability to distinguish between an Objective, measure, target, initiative or goal.

Often the term Objective is associated with an “desired end-state”, in which case the phrase "attaining our objectives" would be appropriately applied.  Certainly in Military terms, reaching an objective is often associated with attaining control over and area that was previously under the opposing forces control.   Other industries also use the term "objective" in a similar manner.  Business objectives are often goal related. At times they are quantitatively expressed as in financial objectives or other performance objectives such as production cycle time goals, process, product or service quality standard goals, goals for the reduction of waste or other process efficiency measures.  Sometimes they are project related, such as in deploying a new product or service. In all these cases the can be "accomplished" or "attained".

The key to understanding the term Objective within the context of the BSC is to think of an Objective as a "continuous improvement activity"; one about which we will want answer the question “How are we doing in this activity over the long run?” rather than “Has it been reached?”  Here we can see that we really never "achieve" or "attain" our objectives, but rather improve, maintain or degrade our objective performance over time.  What we are really interested in, with regards to our Objectives, are the associated performance trends in relation to our stated performance targets of these continuous improvement activities and how the performance of one Objective impacts other Objectives.  None operate in isolation as  collectively our Objectives enable us, as I am fond of saying, to complete our Mission today and achieve our Vision tomorrow.

Have you faced this challenge with the understanding of the term "Objective" in your organization or in the organizations you work with?

If so, what ways have you found to help overcome this hurdle?