Be A Bean February 2022 Newsletter

Number One Key Performance Indicator

To fly, an aircraft must be able to lift the weight of the aircraft by producing enough thrust and speed to counter the drag forces that inhibit progress through the skies. The four forces acting on an airplane are lift, drag, thrust, and weight. Much like an airplane, your team’s flight through the turbulence of business is sustained by the power of your culture and the four forces on your culture are purpose, commitment, employee disengagement, and fixed mindsets.

A business has a purpose and a commitment to connecting its culture to the vision. Business culture has many definitions, but in some way, all refer to purpose and commitment as keys to engaging employees.

Disengaged employees are costing businesses 18% of their payroll in lost performance. And that cost will not appear on any financial statement directly but can appear indirectly in absenteeism, employee turnover, and retraining costs. Do you know if your employees are engaged?

Your current leadership is working perfectly …. for the results you are getting now. If you do not like those results, the first place to look is at your leadership. Good leadership inspires an elite culture and keeps a team on course toward the vision. A team needs to know their present position, their destination, and the course to get there. A big part of leading teams is consistently communicating all three: position, destination, and course. It is called transparency.

So, how do you know you have the right culture for elite performance and innovation that guides your team on the plotted course? Every leader has blind spots and unless you can create a “speak-up culture” where positive, purposeful, and productive conversations are the norm you will not find those blind spots. In a “speak-up culture”, your team becomes the additional eyes and ears necessary in finding those blind spots. A leader is the navigation aid to stay on course.

How do you know your leadership strayed from your vision? You, the leader, are making all the decisions while your team awaits your directions. Decisions are delayed because everything depends on you analyzing the data and deciding. You have a top-down/authoritative hierarchy with no copilots to help.

When unexpected challenges come, your team is afraid to speak up for fear of retribution or embarrassment and you miss opportunities, you miss valuable short-cuts. In the worst case, your managers turn silent, and you are flying solo.

Creating a “speak-up culture” does not happen overnight, nor does an elite culture appear on any financial statement. But your team and company will feel the cultural weight and drag with each interaction.

Building trust, connecting with team members, gaining commitment, and feeling the care between members builds the bonds that make an effective “flight crew”. The Teddy Roosevelt adage: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care” creates an elite crew. Showing how much a leader cares does not happen overnight; it takes time to build. But a positive culture can certainly disappear overnight when team members disengage or are “along for the ride”.

Team performance is measured by key performance indicators (K.P.I.’s) and assorted other metrics, but culture is hard to quantify. Sure, we can submit polls and surveys and find trends in culture, but it remains a feeling. The distinction between team members feeling “I get to go to work” versus “I have to go to work” makes the difference between average, good, and elite performance.

What if, in addition to your report card metrics, you made the following K.P.I. your primary or overarching key performance indicator?

???????????K – Kulture (with a “K”) – regularly emphasize and promote the team’s vision “walk the talk”.

P – Positive Leadership – events with outcomes are constant, look for positive responses to alter or affect the outcome

I – Interrelationships - build the relationships that lead to the “speak-up culture”

Fly high! Captain your team through smooth or turbulent skies to reach your goals successfully.