How do you improve your golf? – Improve your handicap – It’s a measurement.
How do you improve exam results? – get better grades – It’s a measurement.
How do you improve fuel efficiency? – improve miles per gallon – It’s a measurement.
It follows, that in business if we are to improve results, setting measurement criteria is important.
So why are only few businesses doing this?
We don’t know what we don’t know
Your accountant tells you how much profit you have made and the amount of tax you have to pay. (Or the reverse). How does it help you improve your results for the next year?
The only way to guarantee improvement is breaking down your goals in to small manageable chunks and set activity and results based measurement criteria.
Mind set of instant results
We demand instant results and if it does not happen we move on to the next best fad… and so on. We have no patience to fine tune actions to get better results.
Lack of Commitment to Goal
When we are not fully committed to the goal, then measuring it seems a painful activity.
Desperation
When we desperately seek results, measuring will ask deep questions. We may be uncomfortable with that.
Afraid to face the facts
Measuring something makes us confront the truth. We may not want to know the truth.
But I would rather look at ‘measuring’ as a way of small milestones to my bigger goal.
Tom Peters in this video articulates why milestones matter:
+ Ravi Peal-Shankar
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