Strategic Discipline Blog

Measuring results isn’t always easy.  Let’s take my situation here in the hospital.  The nurses, physicians and support team are all surprised and amazed at my health and attitude throughout my chemotherapy treatments.  Beyond two short and slight fevers, plus a few rashes, and my hair loss I’ve had no real outward consequences from the chemotherapy.  Yet never confuse efforts with results.

Ultimately ridding my body of Leukemia is the ultimate objective.  My being healthy and feeling good is and would be a wonderful benefit to flow through this experience; however the objective is to eliminate cancer and get me back to living a normal everyday life. 

The picture here displays my scores on my White Blood Cells, Hemoglobin, and Platelets.  The numbers are indicators on what’s happening inside my bone marrow.  They don’t provide the final outcome which only comes from the results of the biopsies when completed.  Those numbers are much more relevant to the objective and should be the real metrics.

In the last week I’ve worked with two of my clients to establish their quarterly priorities.  We’ve reviewed their 3-5 year plan, Annual plan and the previous quarter.  We determined what they’d learned from achieving or failing to reach some of their priorities and then planned for the next quarter.  In doing so we affirmed the One Thing for the year and then chose One Thing for their 2^nd Quarter.

Objective Priorities like revenue, number of new clients, profit margin, or client surveys are usually easier to measure.  Subjective Priorities are much more difficult to measure.  When is one of the 7-9 work process flow charts truly completed?   If you plan to follow the 4 question survey Gazelles coaches recommend each of our client's executive team members to do weekly, to what degree are the answers meeting the criteria established within the framework of these questions?  If one question is only answered and the client/customer refuses to answer the remainder is that a completed survey or not?

In my coaching practice I’ve discovered, depending upon the executive team’s previous experience with setting priorities, measuring and establishing these priorities can take a quarter or longer to get everyone aligned with meaningful company and individual dashboards.  

Establishing Metrics takes time and patience.  Determining what to measure for each priority can require some thoughtful consideration.  Make sure you are truly going to reach the objective you have in mind.

Let’s explore two different examples of customer surveys which provide two entirely dissimilar outcomes in my next blog. A meeting I’m having with Verne Harnish on IV infusion of Vitamin C as an alternative leukemia solution may take precedent over the example I just mentioned.  Please catch my blog Tuesday or Wednesday.