Category Archives for "performance management"

And this strategy might just be THE best thing you can do.

So, how does a business scorecard accelerate results? One word...

FEEDBACK

That’s right. Feedback is the special sauce your business needs to accelerate results. But the type of feedback I’m talking about might not be what your thinking.

Having a scorecard is one way to know if your business had a good day or not, and it provides essential feedback on most critical business activities.

As a business leader have you ever caught yourself saying…

‘I wish people would just come to work and do their jobs’.

Having heard this many times in my work with business owners, here’s how I respond:

First, I listen and allow the business owner to vent for a few moments, then I remind them of these three facts:

• They hired, trained, and manage the staff
• The staff works for them
• As the owner they’re ultimately accountable for staff performance

In other words, if they’re not happy with how people are performing in their business it’s on them to fix it.

So the $64,000 Question is: Did they establish clear expectations?

And that’s where these two words come into play:

Responsibility and Accountability.

Responsibility and accountability are the yin yang of performance management. They work well together, but they don’t mean the same things.

You ask someone how their work is going, and the reply is “pretty good”, or “it’s coming along”, or “just about done”, only to learn a bit later that the job is really only 20% complete. English teachers call these verbal diversions euphemisms, or escape words. They are a long way from the truth and they are rampant in business.

For some people there is too much truth in exact measurement. They just don’t have the courage to face the truth of exact measurement and instead focus on activities, not results. Along the way they collect reasons – excuses – why the job they are working on is “almost…”, or “just about…” done.

Using key performance indicators (KPIs) is a great way to turn your business into a game. Here's some tips on creating your own score keeping system...