Wells Fargo's fines came from Management By Objective

[Jen Kirley]

In an article in Bloomberg, Matt Levine suggests the Wells Fargo fake accounts were opened because of unreachable metrics placed on branches by upper management, and branch managers placing pressure on employees to meet the quotas. He says "Be careful what you wish for" with these performance metrics.

It seems to me he has a point. Isn't he referring to Deming's Point #12? "Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management." Oh yeah, let's not forget Point #8 "Drive out fear."

The complaint against Wells Fargo can be read here.

 

[Marc]

Wells Fargo was a big one in the housing market crash and simply hasn't changed. Too big to give a damn.

The term "Liar Loans" comes from.... Guess who.

My bet is no one in the whole company would recognize who W._Edwards_Deming was, much less his 14 points.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

When greed is THE driving force for managers, the whole workforce suffers.

Interesting to note that we've had knowledgeable people in this forum who would say those unrealistic sales objectives amount to "quality objectives".

A great example of how unbalanced objectives create tremendous problems for one of the most critical stakeholder categories of the QMS: the employees.

 

[Jen Kirley]

Wells Fargo was a big one in the housing market crash and simply hasn't changed. Too big to give a damn.

The few times we used lenders other than Navy Federal Credit Union (we're in our 7th house and have in the past also refinanced as well as getting a second mortgage) we have been deeply disappointed. Even in this one they came up with some corkscrew rule that the house had to have a range in it for the loan to be approved (it was a HUD foreclosure, and all the appliances and ceiling fans had been taken out). I had to buy a range for a house we had not purchased yet (you know HUD isn't going to buy one) and send them a copy of the receipt. But compared to the lender we were previously going with this was nothing. The other lender wanted a completed tax return on January 6th. Then they wanted a copy of the cashiers check to the IRS for taxes due. That's when I told them they were fired.

 

[randomname]

It's less about objectives and more about tying compensation to them. Incentive systems will always beat out common sense.