thedanglingmodifier.co.uk

My colleagues goad me from time to time with confusing messages, telling me to “put all my ducks in line” for example. This makes me worry about my career as an editor in the public sector. And now I hear we should expect a ‘bloodbath’.

I don’t fancy a bloodbath – I’m a peaceful person, or at least too spineless to fight. I am frightened by the thought of ‘guerilla war’. Or at least, I was.

So I’ve been taking advantage of every training opportunity available. After all, editorial work is lonely and poorly rewarded.

This week I have been broadening my ‘skills set’ by studying management.The trainer, Steve, was a middle-aged man in a turquoise satin shirt and pillar box red tie. I suspected from the start that he would try to make the day ‘fun’ but it was difficult to tell what he was thinking. His glasses were shiny lensed – the shine so bright that it hid his eyes.

Sure enough, he was soon telling us that he wanted “to engage heads and hearts”. He said that his nephew, Jack, wanted to take part in the pentathlon at the London Olympics in 2012. (Something made me suspect he didn’t really have a nephew called Jack). He told us to get into groups, that were to write a service plan for this Jack, with:

• key performance indicators (KPIs)
• milestones
• targets
• measurements.

I don’t know the difference between a key performance indicator, milestone or measurement, but of course I didn’t say. But someone else asked what the difference was. I couldn’t believe it – I was so surprised I almost forgot to listen to the answer, which was:

“That’s a very good question – I’m glad you asked me that.”

I still couldn’t see the look in Steve’s eyes, but something in his tone made me suspect he wasn’t really glad. He paused for a moment, as if in thought, before saying:

“A KPI is a result. A milestone is an achievement. And a measurement is an assessment of where we are now. Do you see?”

The questioner, a young guy doodling on a pad, said that he didn’t see. Steve explained again.

“Well, for example – a KPI is a result. In Jack’s case this might be winning the regional championships. Whereas getting into the county team, or even the Olympic team that’s an achievement – a milestone…”

The doodle boy looked up from his pad and said:

“So, are you saying that winning the regional championships isn’t an achievement because it’s not a milestone?”

Steve was ready with a disdainful ‘hah’.

“Hah! Very good,” he said, sneering and smiling at the same time. “No of course it’s an achievement, in the broadest, everyday sense of the word – but it’s not technically a milestone…”

Then someone else shouted out:

“Wouldn’t you say that it’s a pretty good measurement of where Jack is in his efforts to get to the Olympics though? ‘Coz if he doesn’t get into the Olympic team…”

Steve, smiling – like a slug would smile if it had lips – butted in:

“Yeah, I’m with you. But technically, technically, a measurement would be his personal best – for example, running the 200 metres even faster.”

“That sounds like an achievement!”

Everyone was shouting things out by now.

“Wouldn’t running the 200 metres even faster be reaching a target?”

“Yeah, and what if he knows he has to run it that fast to get into the county team? Does that make it a key performance indicator or a milestone?”

Guerrilla war turns out to be more fun than I thought!