How To Avoid Hitting The KPI Panic Button
Nick Fewings Teamworkologist
Advisory Council Member Harvard Business Review. Author of bestseller Team Lead Succeed. Team Development Specialist. Creator of the Team DyNAmics Model. International Keynote Speaker and Co-Founder of Our Team Synergy.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are invariably the key measurement of how a team is performing against objectives and goals that have been set.
Often using a traffic-light system to indicate whether they are on track, a cause for concern or a real problem.
When a KPI hits red, often panic ensues, with knee-jerk reactions and poor decisions being made, rather than taking time to fully understand what the underlying problem is that is affecting the KPI. Let me explain.
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Yesterday, I had a text from my wife, who’d driven her car to go to her appointment with her hairdresser. She’d text as she knew I was in a meeting.
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Her journey was about three miles, during which three warning lights appeared on her dashboard, engine, stop/start and check.
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She checked the car’s manual, and as they were warning lights, let me know, and asked me to ring our garage to book her car in for a diagnostic check, as soon as my meeting finished.
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Based on the warning lights and the information in the manual, we worked as a team to identify the problem, understand the severity, plan what to do, and take action, to sort out the problem effectively and efficiently.
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And herein lies the problem in 8 out of 10* teams, when their Key Performance Indicators start going wrong.
They have no information about the effectiveness of their teamwork, to diagnose what the underlying problem is, to enable them to put together an effective and efficient plan of action.
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KPIs invariably are based on cost, quality or time, all of which are impacted by the effectiveness of your teamwork.
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Is the underlying problem with your KPIs to do with decision-making, accountability, communication or your processes?
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Perhaps your team don’t all have the same understanding of your team’s purpose, or team skills aren’t being used effectively.
?Don’t panic, help is at hand.
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Our Team Synergy has been created to help you and your team have the necessary information to understand team effectiveness overall, and across 16 areas of teamwork.
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And the great thing is, you can produce an in-depth report, and have the knowledge to use it with your team, without any reliance on external support.
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If you don’t want to be in the 8 out of 10 club, find out more, by joining me on a Zoom webinar on Thursday 25th April at 1pm GMT.
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Details can be found via the link below. On registration, the Zoom link will be sent to you.
Our Team Synergy. Your Team Success.
Empowering businesses that want to do better | Sustainability | Strategy | Biodiversity | Emission strategy & Net Zero | ESG Specialist | GRI Certified
8 个月One of the issues with KPI’s is that they may not be fit for purpose. One of my previous employers was given an objective to reduce wage costs. This led to people being laid off but re-engaged as consultants. Result headcount reduced but costs increased. So the KPI needs to be fit for purpose. I suspect that warning light based on your description was generic rather than specific