Performance

I conducted another interview for inclusion in my upcoming book. A recurring theme among the best organizations is that they measure performance. The plan, and they measure performance against the plan.

Measuring performance without an objective standard or criteria to measure against is meaningless. That's what many organizations do, however. They evaluate performance in isolation or against some undefined perception. Performance of suppliers, of employees, and of yourself has to be measured against pre-determined standards or criteria if they are to mean anything. The thing is, people like to be measured. They like to be measured if they can meet the standards or criteria. That's important.

You can't measure an individual's performance if they are not give the tools, training, and resources that are needed to complete the task. The same goes for suppliers. You must act as a responsible customer, and you must tell them ahead of time what they will be measured on and how you will perform the measurements.

Be one of the best. Plan, and measure your performance.

Innovation: What it means for you

I’m reading a group of articles in Inc. magazine about innovation. Apparently there are a fair number of consulting companies that specialize in innovation. I’m not sure how that works. Hire somebody to be creative for you, or something, I guess. Nothing wrong with that. As I say, do what you’re good at and outsource the things you’re not good at. That applies to creativity and innovation too. But that’s not what I find interesting in the articles.

What struck me is one article in particular, about how these innovation companies keep their employees thinking creatively and innovatively. I work a lot in the area of process improvement, and I advocate creativity during process improvement activities. I also advocate taking care of your employees and fostering a work environment where employees want to be, not just someplace they go just to get a paycheck. It turns out that the same things that these innovation companies do to keep their employees thinking creatively and innovatively are the same things you should do to keep your employees engaged and creative in their everyday work and in process improvement activities.

I tell people that if your employees aren’t making mistakes, you’re doing something wrong. Because if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying anything new. If you’re not trying anything new, you’re doing the same old things. You can’t expect different results if you’re doing the same old things, and you certainly can’t grow, improve, and become more successful and profitable.

You won’t be able to do all the things that these innovation companies do for their employees, but you can do many of them. You can, and should, encourage your employees to try new things and allow them to make mistakes. One of the innovation companies even presents an award to the employee who made the biggest or best mistake, which means they give an award for failure. If you punish failure, no one will ever try anything new. If you reward it, people will try all sorts of grand new things. You don’t want people making the same mistakes over and over, of course. I’m talking about trying new things in the context of making improvements to processes, products, and service offerings. Try it, and reap the rewards.