WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?
Happiness is a direction, not a place. ~ Syndey J. Harris
If happiness is a direction, how do you get everyone in your company moving in that direction?
It requires communication, a leadership team diligently deciding what direction the company is taking, every year, every quarter, establishing 3-5 year objectives and creating a 10-25 year BHAG.
These elements are part of our Strategic Discipline, the One Page Strategic Plan, and Scaling Up fundamentals we work to establish in our first two day private workshop with our customers.
How do you get your entire team with their oars in the water pulling in the same direction? The kind of Advantage Patrick Lencioni describes?
― Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
How One Construction Company Achieved It
One of our Gazelles coached businesses, a Pacific Northwest Construction Company, met with a group from their bank at their business. While there the owner gave the bankers a quick tour of their facilities. As the bankers passed through the business, they noticed something unusual. At every workstation, each employee had a dashboard. The dashboards shared their individual Success Criteria toward their positions accountability metrics, and their contribution to the company’s Quarterly One Thing.
They’d been impressed with the company’s performance, and one of the reasons for the meeting was to discover why they were doing so well, and how they might help further the company’s growth. Suddenly one and one made much more than two! The bankers not only offered to help the company further, they provided an improved financial package to ensure they would secure this construction company’s customer relationship for the future. They recognized a key ingredient in this company’s success was getting buy in from every individual in the business, and having them completely on board with their individual contribution to this company’s success.
Cascading Accountability – Individual Dashboards
Your company should have a One Thing Priority every year and quarter. For smaller companies an annual One Thing works.
Communicating your One Thing should be accomplished during company-wide meetings, reinforced during team meetings and again in your One On One Meetings.
At the beginning of every quarter/year, leadership should require their team to build an individual dashboard.
Whatever dashboard form you make, ensure you and your team member can quickly see whether or not they are achieving by establishing success criteria as we shared in Increase Meetings Effectiveness With Success Criteria.
We shared this practice as one of the fundamental principles driving the Exponential Organizations in Increase Accountability with OKRs – Objectives and Key Results in 2014. If you’re not already doing individual dashboards with your team, you are at least 3 years behind, probably considerably more.
The article shares some of the characteristics of OKR’s Objectives and Key Results:
OKR’s Objectives and Key Results
OKR’s Objectives and Key Results are very similar to the leadership teams company KPI’s established at the annual and quarterly meetings.
Dashboards for Individuals should take into account both the OKR’s reflecting the direction the company is moving, and monitor their key accountability metrics, which should be determined on their Job Summary Scorecard. When all this is achieved you have a measurement tool to move the business forward, evaluate individual progress, and when tied into your performance matrix, monitor each individual’s cultural behavior.
If your business is searching for tools like these to achieve individual and company accountability on a grander scale, plan to attend Scaling Up Business Growth Workshop in Cedar Rapids, IA. We’ll share ideas on company and individual dashboards, and our Scaling Up and Strategic Discipline principles.
If you’re looking to learn how to develop dashboards for your business, contact dwick@positioningsystems.com. Or take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment to discover how your business measures against Scaled Up companies. Then we’ll contact you.
Your businesses’ success depends on your ability to differentiate yourself. Next blog I’ll share a tool from Kaihan Krippendorff’s workshop. The Outthinker Score measures your level of competitiveness. The higher your score, the easier it will be for you to grow fast and profitable. Be sure to join me for the 8 P’s Assessment tool, next blog.