Wanted

MEASURE UP

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wa nte d

You cannot be successful in your work or

your career without a measure of success

If you want to make progress or improve then

measurement (qualitative or quantitative) should be

a key element of your approach.

It is fashionable in modern management

to have performance measures for

everything. Often this results in having

measures for the sake of measures with

the consequence that there are too

many, they are often meaningless and

they bear little relationship to the out-

comes desired by customers and

shareholders alike.

However this is not to negate the importance of measures. How

can a marathon runner improve her performance unless she has

a measure of her time together with a target for improvement?

To make improvements it is essential that you have some meas-

ure of that improvement. If you are a sales person with a past

performance showing you converted one in ten customer calls

into sales worth ‘

x’ then it makes sense to aim for two conver-

sions per ten calls into sales worth ‘

2x’.

A quantitative measure of success then becomes a valuable piece

of data when being considered for a much-wanted job. Equally

important are qualitative measures involving a degree of subjec-

tive judgement. You cannot measure the performance of a

receptionist by how often she smiles or by the number of visitor

commendations. Inevitably there will be a degree of subjective

‘measuring up’ determined by perceived attitudes, behaviours

and overall approach to the work.

You must measure

what is important

for you, your team,

your boss, your

customers and,

ultimately, your

shareholders

The key criteria for any measurement process for individuals are:

1 The measures must be simple (easy to understand and easy to

measure).

2 The measures must be important and meaningful (by being

linked to the desiredoutcome for the job).

3 The measures must be few in number (ideally between three

and six).

When your measures meet these criteria they become memo-

rable and can influence your daily behaviour in making

improvements. An example of such behavioural improvements

might relate to how you approach customers. Instead of just

‘pushing product’ at them you might improve by ‘building rela-

tionships and understanding their needs’. You can measure your

success through the resultant sales.

Ultimately you must not wait for or rely upon your organisation

for the imposition of measures. If they are thrust upon you then

accept them and work to them. However it is far better to initi-

ate your own personal measures of success and work towards

attaining these. In this way you can ensure the measures are

important, meaningful and sufficiently substantial to impress

those you wish to impress in the future.

PRA C T I CA L TI P

G

Focus on one measure at a time and concentrate on this for

the day or the week. Thus you might focus on an improved

speed of response to customers. This is measurable,

beneficial and substantial.

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Measure Up