It was in the early 1950’s when the concept of “management by objectives” was introduced by Peter Drucker. The idea was that the boss would agree a set of goals for the year with each subordinate and then review the performance against these goals. Managers also learned about the acronym SMART for goal setting meaning goals had to be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. This methodology of goal setting has become so established that few managers have actually questioned if this approach works.