Lagging or leading?

Everybody talks about wanting to change things, help and fix, but ultimately all you can do is to fix yourself: and that’s a lot, cause if you can fix yourself, you create a ripple effect. You cannot manage what you cannot measure and you need to measure what matters. And anything that can be measured can be improved.  Measure what matters deserves to be fully embraced by every person responsible for performance, in every walk of life.  If every team, leader, individual applies this concept with vigour and imagination, all sectors of society certainly would witness an exponential increase in productivity and innovation.

This way the budding generation of entrepreneurs, professionals, philanthropists can be crystal clear in their understanding that execution is everything. And if one can imbibe processes, systems to measure what matters, any organisation and the team can aim high, move fast and excel.

Measure what matters is a gift to every leader, entrepreneur who wants a more transparent, accountable and effective team, as it encourages the kind of big, bold bets that can transform an organization.

Need to create an organisation of thinking and doing giants – who are innovative, experimental, intuitive, weird, fun loving, who rejoice and celebrate failures –  and are not inward coiled, rusted, defensive, argumentative, protective and past driven – existing on survival mode mostly.

Lagging Indicators: Such as financial outcomes – Profit and Loss statement, provide lagging indicators or organisation performance, as they report past results that simply cannot be changed.

Leading Indicators: are the measures of your internal systems, processes- that lead to financial results. They are happening in real time, and you can change, improve, them, as you strive for better results. For example, daily plucking averages, field performances and so forth. At the end of the fixated period, you get a financial statement, telling you the outcome of your effort.

These business measures may involve:

• Efficiency measures.
• Quality measures.
• Employee skills and satisfaction measures.
• Innovation and improvement measures.

Leading indicators are critical, cause the imbibed measurement system when reveals a problem or diminished performance, the sooner corrections can be made.

Remember: measurement and feedback drives all process improvement.

Your call now, folks!