KPIs -Measure Of Respect

There is a lot in life we can’t control, but there are many things we can influence. Finding the right KPI might help.

I like the idea of "KPIs for living" because the numbers don’t lie.

It’s so easy to fool yourself that you are on track if you don’t actually make some efforts to self-analyze. But you need something to measure. Something that you can’t manipulate. Manipulation catches up with you eventually. You pay the piper in the long run.

Do you know our human brains are scientifically wired to set goals and experience a reward on its achievement? It releases a chemical called dopamine every time you experience a reward.

Remember when we were little, we often wanted to be taller and used to say, “I can't wait until that day when I’m finally as tall as my elder brother, so I can sit in the front seat!”. We used to track the number of days until our birthday celebration- “It’s 2 more months for my birthday to come!”. We used to measure our successes - “Read 100 Books in 100 Days for a read-a-thon, and get a Round Table Pizza!” 

In the kitchen, just try throwing ingredients into a bowl without paying attention to the recipe's measurements. You might be surprised at what comes out of the oven!

You stepped away for a few mins & come back to watch your favorite basketball game on TV. Now you read the score-board & ask -What's the score of each team? Who scored how many points? Minutes-played, shots missed? What's Durant's game score? How many 3-pointers Steph Curry made? And you get the entire story. You can even guess who’s winning! (Go Warriors! Of-course ;) )

Professional growth? Competencies, Skills, Knowledge, Degrees, Experience, Titles, Promotions, all matters. 

Even ancient explorers may have been lost in unfamiliar territory, but they knew if they could follow the "North Star" they’d be able to figure out their destination.

So if you stop to think about it for a bit, you'll realize that measurements surround you on all sides. And guess what? They matter! They're there for a reason.

If you don’t measure results, you can’t tell success from failure and thus you cannot claim or reward success or avoid unintentionally rewarding failure.

What you measure is very important! It’s an old cliché: “What gets measured gets done.” Measuring the wrong things certainly translates to motivating the wrong behavior.

Organizations use a set of KPI’s to evaluate progress towards reaching goals. 

• Be clear about your organization’s vision, mission & core values. Vision - bigger picture. Mission - how the vision will be achieved.
• Set the goal! Focus on what matters and what requires attention -follow the “North Star” or change the direction?
• Does a goal align with the company’s mission/vision? Then it’s a Strategic Goal; Doing things differently. Doing the right things. 
• Does a goal require incremental improvement or a critical change? Then it’s an Operational Goal; Doing things better. Doing things right.
• Identify where do you need improvement? Which areas: customers, innovation, people, and leadership. 
• Define the strategies, goal into objectives into metrics into quantifiable KPIs. Define and align Operational KPIs to Strategic KPIs via tactic measures. Be clear of the purpose. Communicate on what, why and how will be measured. Are KPIs looking at past performance (lag indicators) or predicting future success (lead indicators)?
• Build action plans.
• Engage team, by offering a sense of ownership through responsibility and by motivating the attainment of better results.
• Design your reports and dashboards to tell a story of success or failures or improvement.
• Continuous measure, assess, learn and improve. Learn, by enabling comparison of results in time. Improve, by evaluating the level of achievement of the desired results and by providing data to accelerate corrective actions.

If you can’t recognize success, you can’t grow from it.

If you can’t recognize failure, you can’t correct & learn from it.