My manager loves to do "action planning" and he pushes me to do it with my own team. He thinks unless they are performing perfectly which is impossible then they need to be on an informal action plan.
Every time our results are less than the goal no matter how small or for how long we have to write up an action plan for him. It creates more work, more emails, more tasks, etc. This method trickles down. Like many corporations, our metrics are unattainable. They also change throughout the year. The goal post moves. They've changed our official goals twice this year when they hired new leadership. One metric we don't even have a goal for yet and it's basically August. Some of the goals they have are also out of employee control much of the time, like surveys.
They also love to "dangle the carrot" which I hate.
Anyone else's company do something different? Is there a better way?