Yes, you did read that title correctly. No, it isn't a typing error. Yes, it does go against everything you've been told about performance measures.
But, if you truly want performance measures (or metrics, if that's what you call them) to really make a difference to your business or organisation, you have to STOP measuring what you can control!
You're going to get far more improvement, far more learning, much faster progress toward your goals if you start measuring the results outside your complete control, the results you only have some INFLUENCE over. Here are 3 reasons why.
Reason 1: What you can completely control is trivial.
What do you really have complete control over? To a great degree, you can control what you think about it. To a lesser degree, you can control what you do and how you do it.
About these things, no-one really cares. Changing these things makes little difference to results that are bigger than yourself. What you can completely control is inside the boundaries of your comfort zone and what you already know, so any change is only incremental and small.
The important stuff is important BECAUSE it's outside our circle of control.
Reason 2: Performance is more than just personal.
Improving what you have complete control over reduces down to improving your own skills and knowledge and competence. In business, performance is about much more than that. Everyone having more skill, more knowledge, and more competence does not guarantee business success.
Performance that matters is mostly about the business results (like profit, stakeholder value, customer loyalty) and the processes that produce these results for the business (like sales, customer support, recruitment). And no one person has complete control over any of these. It's a team effort.
Reason 3: You are creative enough to stretch beyond control.
If you never stand face to face with a result you are passionate about but feel you can't control it, and ask yourself the question "how can I make this possible?" then you are denying your innate creativity.
Why not at least ask this question of one important result outside your control? How can you make it possible? How have others made similar results possible? What ideas do others have for making it possible?
Another implication: reward people for influencing, not just for achieving.
One of the main reasons so many people feel compelled to measure what is in their control is the fear of personal loss if they don't achieve their measures' targets. So they choose easy measures that have very easily attainable targets. This is just jumping through performance hoops, and not about the true purpose of performance measures (to improve important performance results).
So what if you could start rewarding people for how much they try to influence results that aren't inside their control, even if they don't get all the way to the target?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Out of "The Box" thinking is where all the new ideas are found. Its the unknown zone where all the new is dis-covered. Nice idea ... measure what is currently not under a person's or a groups control and find out:
1) How is this (non controlled or out of control) metric tied / correlated to long-term financial success (measured by 4 - 7 classical financial metrics including the market driven P/E ratio.
#2) Let "The Group" figure out how they can gain "Improved Influence" ( I squared) over that Meta Metric and then tie that metric improvement to "Group Financial Incentive" with its leverage payout to the winning team correlated to the market's demanded RIO.
Pay people what they are worth as determend by the institutional markets that determine what the company's stock is worth. This gets the people and their "Corporate Culture" in lock-step with the financial markets and tells the MBA's that have been screwing up the teams ability to achieve "World Class Status" ... that they are no longer "The Boss."
The real "boss" that pays for the paycheck is "The Market" so link "The Employee" to "The Market" via the Meta Metrics that Matter.
As Yrral Nosrac - an individual that turned around two large public pension systems in the US shared with me a few years back "When Leaders Manage The Culture ... The Culture Will Inspire The People ... To Self Manage. No One Wants a Boss." :-)
In Summary:
First: I loved your posted idea. Thank You ... Some One Really Needed To Say That!
Final: We as humans not only need to "Get Out Of The Box" ... we need to learn what that "Box" is built of ... and put it on our intentionally engineered "Endangered List."
Post Note
These notes represent the experiential based library or "opinion" of the author (me) and accordingly may or may not have any credence, credibility or professional acceptance within the AICPA, AARP or Institutions of Higher Learning.
LJohnCarson@MSN.Com
Self Correction
RIO was supposed to have been typed ROI Return On Investment
Post a Comment