5 main Limitations of Management by Objectives

MBO is a unified task and needs involvement of the staff at all important levels. The Objectives laid down jointly must suit to achieve the goals of the organisation. This necessarily

1) Failure to teach the Philosophy:

The objectives and goals of the organisation must be understood properly by the managers, “this requires patient explanation of the entire programme, what it is, how it works, why it is being done, what part it will play in appraising management performance, and above all, how participants can benefit.”

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2) Failure to give Goal Setters Guidelines:

The manager who sets the objectives must be given proper guidelines to achieve the goals. He must clearly know the corporate goals and his stock to achieve them.

3) Goals are Difficult to Set:

As the setting of objectives takes more study and work, it is difficult to set truly verifiable goals’.

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4) Tendency of Goals to be Short Run:

It is usual that goals are- set for a short term usually for a year. This means that superiors must always assure themselves that current objectives, like another short run plan, are designed to serve longer range goals”.

5) The Dangers of Inflexibility:

As objectives framed at the beginning would not be altered by the managers, flexibility will not be allowed to achieve the results, which is very much needed to provide cushion for changes that may occur at various stages.