Key Performance Indicators For Dummies

Chapter 3

Creating a Culture of Fact-Based Decision-Making

In This Chapter

Initiating the right culture

Getting senior management buy-in

Introducing the right meetings

Implementing useful KPIs that improve decision making and performance requires cultural change. Problem is, no-one likes change. And culture change is considered especially gnarly!

If designed properly and used intelligently, however, KPIs can transform performance and drive you towards greater and greater success. KPIs can push the culture of your business toward evidence-based action and decision making. Over time this evidence will replace opinion, guesswork, finger-crossing and command-and-control decision making. You know the sort of thing ‘Just do it – I’m the boss so get on with it’! Implementing KPIs means that it will no longer be acceptable for anyone in your business to make decisions purely on their experience or assumptions without having evidence to back up their hypotheses or choices.

Unfortunately many people’s understanding and personal experience of KPIs in the workplace is fairly negative – backward-looking only measurements that are collected, reported on and then used to whip employees into meeting ...