IN THIS ISSUE:
BUILDING A SUCCESS GPS
How to Build an Integrated Success Dashboard
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are everywhere
today. Once a life-saver for boating enthusiasts, today
these pathfinders are used in flying, boating, hiking--even
driving across town. Looking to satellites, the devices
tell you exactly where you are--and, more importantly, how
to get precisely where you want to go.
What is your company's Success
GPS? How many times have you made a wrong turn and been
disappointed with your quarterly or annual results, only
to find that it's too late to make adjustments? Or, you've
invested millions of dollars in a new software application,
later realizing that your team's behaviors are actually
undermining its success?
This month's NirellNews will give you
some insights around these common frustrations, and how
you can proactively create a "GPS Success Dashboard" to
guide your personal and business success.
Five Destructive
Myths About Success
After nine years of helping clients implement
major change in their revenue-producing organizations, I've
found that the following assumptions typically get in the
way of predictable success:
1. Success is conditional
I've fallen into this trap many times, telling myself things
like, "When I win this $1.2M contract with this big semiconductor
company, I will have made it." NOT! I became over-identified
with this single revenue target, when in reality, I was
already successful. I quickly became alienated from my other
clients and priorities.
2. Success can only be spotted in the
rear-view mirror
Many companies navigate in "catch up" mode, using a
suite of "trailing indicators." Revenues per quarter, annual
customer satisfaction scores, and employee attrition rates,
when used in isolation, force leaders to fly the plane by
looking over their shoulder.
3. Other companies define our measure
of success
One large software company I worked for constantly measured
their sales success against our biggest competitor's revenues.
Marketing and Sales became so obsessed with our competitor's
sales that we ignored a new market opportunity for 12 months.
Eight years later, analysts still cite the company for their
lack of success in the distributed systems market--a place
that competitor quickly flourished! Setting an arbitrary
benchmark like "keeping up with the Joneses" is one of the
surest routes to losing focus and the original passion that
drives the business.
4. Our definitions of success don't
apply to everyone
Here's a live example of how mixed messages can sabotage
success: I recently visited the CEO of a travel company
who emphatically stated that he wanted to assess his management
team's performance by their ability to adhere to "polished,
professional behavior" standards. Right after he made that
bold statement, he invited his daughter to spend the afternoon
in the office. She appeared--dressed in revealing beachwear
and a tank top. What's wrong with this picture?
5. Everyone around us will understand
what we mean by "success"¼no need to spell it out. Don't
assume that every employee with "get it." Assumptions make
it easier for departments to make excuses or play "victim"
at one another's expense." Numerous examples abound in "The
Great Game of Business" that demonstrate the danger of assumption.
7 Tips For Building A "GPS Success"
Dashboard
1. Review your personal success metrics.
Are you living your life from a place of conditional metrics,
or unconditional metrics? Expand beyond definitions that
are solely dependent on customers, business partners, or
co-workers meeting your material and achievement-related
needs. If you can't do this exercise, the business results
will be much more difficult to attain.
2. Establish a baseline of where you
are in these areas today.
Be brutally honest. Does the system have to be absolutely
perfect? No. Just get one established and tweak it as you
go. Many a client has lost precious time, market share and
revenue waiting for the "perfect" spreadsheet or scorecard
to be delivered. See the Resources section below to accelerate
the assessment process.
3. Stretch your thinking about your
company's success.
Look at these four areas and see what definitions you can
create:
TRAILING INDICATORS:
• Internal Results (example: increased
collaboration across departments)
• External Results (revenue, customer satisfaction)
LEADING INDICATORS:
• Internal Behaviors (how often your teams
proactively approach you with new solutions or ideas)
• External Behaviors (customers invite us to participate
in project planning before they send an RFP)
Pick 2-3 metrics from this list and create
your own "GPS Success Dashboard." Be certain you've selected
from both the Trailing and Leading Indicator categories.
4. Test your "GPS Success Metrics"
against these questions 1:
• What really drives our growth? Is it customer
intimacy, product leadership, or organizational efficiency?
Do these metrics support that growth strategy?
• Do the results appear balanced? In other words,
to what extent do my results balance across employees, organization,
customers, and investors?1
• Do the results align with my company's business strategy?
Will my results endure over time, or are they short
term?
• To what extent are my results selfless? Do the metrics
support the entire organization, or my personal gain?
5. Create and over-communicate a "checks
and balances" process.
Who will be held accountable? What actionable items will
you include/add to each stake holder's quarterly and annual
objectives that will help drive those metrics? What actions
will each leader consistently take every day to demonstrate
supportive behaviors? Will each executive agree to be brutally
honest when they see a breach of the metric? (remember:
tank top story).
Here's a shift in behavior that told one CEO he was on the
right track. Jack Stack, CEO of SRC and Open Book management
proponent, mentions that his Production Manager used to
think that his job was just to store parts until somebody
else wanted them. Open Book management enabled that Manager
to shift his thinking from "I am a cog in the wheel" to
"I have a management position that has meaning." This is
a perfect example of a leading indicator! Stack also says,
"It's essential to teach people the numbers because numbers
are the language of business, and you can't understand business
if you don't speak the language." Simple? Yes. Easy to implement?
Not always.
6. BELIEVE you can do it, and tell
10 people.
Write down your company and personal success metrics. Read
them every day. Work with an advisor or coach if you sense
that something is stopping you from truly committing to
this success. Share your success statements with at least
10 influential people in your life. Napoleon Hill's evergreen
"bible" of prosperity, Think and Grow Rich, and Mark Victor
Hansen's One Minute Millionaire are a great place to find
tips and frameworks for this process.
7. Email
us for a complete list of sample success metrics.
Just write "Please send me sample GPS Success Dashboard
examples" in the subject line. We have over 30 of them to
help you get started.
Creating Success in Our World
We want to model success and the art of
giving-- right here at NirellNews. Here's the offer: Nirell
& Associates is an Amazon.com affiliate and receives a small
commission for all purchases made using our link. For all
books you order using the Resource Links we have provided,
we will donate 10% of the proceeds to nonprofit organizations
dedicated to helping children gain confidence and self-esteem.
Through July 2003, proceeds will be donated to the Tariq
Khamisa Foundation (http://www.tkf.org/).
This Foundation is powerful -- take a moment to read their
story online.
From now on, please use this Amazon link
to purchase your books and support our efforts--and ask
your employees to do so as well:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/nirellcom-20
Nirell is now a business columnist!
You can click here (www.sddt.com)
to visit the San Diego Daily Transcript and receive two
free weeks, delivered to your office. Their readership exceeds
50,000 daily. My column will be entitled œGrowth in Action.™
Send your column ideas!
Resources:
Results-Based
Leadership, Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger, Norm Smallwood,
1999.
The
Great Game of Business, Jack Stack, 1992. www.greatgame.com
Think
and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill, 1937
Best Practices, Inc. -- low-cost reports
and resources on benchmarking: http://www.best-in-class.com/
Success Profiles Inc., excellent book
list on measuring success, and online asssessments for measuring
various aspects of performance: http://www.successprofiles.com/
Ready¼aim¼FLY towards a successful
summer!
P.S. Thanks for indulging us with the
flying metaphors. My husband's airplane is less than eight
months from its maiden flight and it's beginning to rub
off.
--Lisa Nirell
http://www.energizegrowth.com/
