In this article the author argues that the major ills of our formal social institutions cannot be effectively addressed without abandoning the widely adopted model of planning, evaluation and accountability that focuses on the formulation and use of aims and objectives or--to use more recent parlance--targets. She provides some background information about the model, outlines its alleged strengths, criticises it severely and proposes a specific problem-based alternative. She concludes that if professionals wish to improve their practice and the fields of endeavour in which they operate, they must contest the orthodoxy of the objectives model.