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by Warren Hayford
It is not enough to have a big kick off meeting and state your organization’s priorities. Every member of your team will be distracted from those priorities the moment they get back to the office.
Every day urgent calls, “fires” they have to put out, and the normal interruptions of management distract them from your goals. If you are going to achieve your goals, you need to implement a process that will continually bring your goals back into focus.
The process is built on a select set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Which KPIs? The KPIs which measure progress toward your goals.
You need to be careful that you don’t select too many measures. More numbers do not create better focus. Instead, too many KPIs may cause distraction and failure.
Experts have shown that the human mind can hold five to seven items at a time. At least two or three of these will be taken up by urgent items that occur during the course of an every normal business day.
You need to break through the daily clutter fighting for your teams attention. You need to select the two or three most important KPIs. The 2 or 3 KPIs you select may be different for each business function.
For example, you have a goal to increase sales of a new product. You might have your Accounting team focus on getting key suppliers paid to keep the raw materials available. Your Sales team might focus on calling on new prospects in an industry which needs the new product.
The KPIs you select need to be within the business unit’s span of control. They need to have the capability to act to improve their measures.
KPIs will not by themselves drive results. Your team needs to see a clear link between the KPIs and the organization’s priorities. It can’t just be clear to you. It needs to be clear to every member of your team. This linkage helps them understand the importance of the measures.
The last component of your process is feedback. Feedback fills two roles. First, it shows your team how well they are performing. Second, it shows that management is paying attention. This attention keeps the achievement of your goals on everyone’s priority list.
To improve your company’s performance, build and install a process to drive achievement of your goals throughout the year. Select KPIs which both measure achievement of your goals and are specific to the business function. Select a few specific measure for each business function to focus on. Show each of your teams how their KPIs are linked to your priority goals. Then provide regular feedback to let them measure their success and remind them you are interested in these measures too.
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