Building Sustainability Into Your Performance Management Program

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Bob Champagne

Like some of you, I always enjoy watching the final round of a good golf tournament on a Sunday afternoon, particularly if it’s a close race to the finish, or if there is someone I like to follow in the final few pairings with a decent chance to win. But I think the most enjoyable tournaments I’ve ever watched involved a good “comeback story”- whether it is the overwhelming underdog about to claim their first real victory, or the encore of an otherwise “past legend” of the game.

Such was the case this weekend watching the Northern Trust PGA stop at “Riviera” outside of Los Angeles. Normally, this past Sunday’s finish would have been one of those I viewed in the background , since most of the golfers I normally follow had already worked themselves out of the tournament by Friday afternoon.

Usually by Saturday evening, you know who is likely to be in contention, as those who are either struggling, or have taken steps in the wrong direction have moved themselves too far down the leaderboard to have a legitimate chance. Needless to say, as I approach that magical age of 50, having someone that I like to follow on the top of the leaderboard is becoming a rarity these days unless I’m watching the Senior Tour.

But this Sunday was different. For the first time in a while, two of the “older farts” that I like to follow were actually making a run at it. Those were VJ Singh (47) and, none other than, Fred Couples (51)- the latter of whom I grew up watching as a kid. When I was in high school, I can remember watching “Freddy” come on the scene and, within a only few years, begin to contend with all the golf “Masters” of that era (literally).

In sports, “over 40″ is considered “old” and “over 50″ is usually considered “time for the senior tour”. Except for the “honorary” roles at a few of the Major events, it is very rare to see someone over 50 in contention on Sundays. And when they do, it is most notable. When these players beat the odds and simply compete well (even if they don’t win)- Tom Watson at the recent British Open for example-it is a special moment. But when they win, it is literally something to behold- something reserved for true legends. In fact, a win from Fred this week would have made him one of only three golfers (alongside Snead and Floyd) to win in four different decades, a true measure of “sustainability”.

As it turns out, Fred didn’t win this week, due in large measure to a bad performance on a single hole which essentially took him out of contention, ultimately falling to the young Ausie, Aaron Baddeley.

One hole… that’s all it took to create a 3 stroke swing that killed most of the momentum built over 4 days and 65 holes of solid golf. Sad? A little. Here’s a guy over 50, riddled with a chronic back injuries, who routinely wins or “places” on the Senior Tour, and who was actually in contention with 6 holes to play alongside a guy half his age. Impressive any way you look at it.

And that is what got me thinking about SUSTAINABILITY. What is it that differentiates certain athletes to be able to sustain performance over literally decades? And how can we apply these lessons to business success, and perhaps our lives in general?

Interestingly, those athletes who sustain performance over many years, are sometimes those that never reach that elusive “#1 ranking” in there sport. They may have been #2 or #5 or even lower, but they were consistent in their performance over much longer durations, usually “hanging around” long after the #1’s had fallen or left the sport. Same with Businesses. Companies who may never achieve #1, can be just as successful by being in the “top few” (even the top decile or quartile) if they can perform at that level in a sustained and measured way.

So what is it that makes that difference? Here are five factors that I submit as key answers to that question.

Build “Around The Core”– Over the course of an athlete’s career, or a company’s history, the likelihood of going through multiple periods of change is almost certain, as is the probability that more than a few of those changes will be of large magnitude. But despite this, those who sustain their performance usually have a “core” that they develop and build around. For an athlete, this is usually referred to as a playing “style”- a golfer’s unique swing, a quarterback’s throwing motion, etc. And while that “style” can be tweaked or refined from time to time, the core elements of it usually transcend different periods of a career. For good businesses, this usually shows up in the form of vision and values. While specific missions, goals, KPI’s and strategies will no doubt change over time, the core vision and values, generally don’t.
Strategic Flexibility and Adaptability– Some may view this a little contradictory to the above point, but here is the distinction: While the core tends to remain stable, the strategies and tactics can, and should be somewhat fluid over time. Golfers and other athletes always “tinker” with different parts of their game and often solicit advice from coaches on what may be failing them at any particular point in time. They “adapt” their style to what may be needed to make themselves better. But rarely does this change the “core” of what defines them in terms of their long terms success. And when they do change something, its usually “off the course”. That is, they generally don’t change a fundamental strategy during the round, but rather do it on the range or in a practice round. When they “hit the course”, it’s generally all about execution. Businesses too, need to adapt to changing market conditions, buying patterns, economic climates, and numerous other factors; but at the same time protecting the core of what distinguishes their excellence.
Broaden the “Perspective”- My view of athletes who maintain sustainable success is that they do in fact modify their goals over time. I originally wrote this as their “openness and willingness to modify a target”, but that conveyed more “weakness” than I really intended. It’s not that they change the target because they’re getting further into the lifecycle of their career, as much as it is changing the ultimate “perspective” and “horizon” around which they measure success. First time winners of the Superbowl start thinking in terms of career goals versus simply seasonal goals. Golfers start thinking about world rankings and career wins versus weekly tournament successes. No doubt, every one of these athletes wants to win week in and week out, but I suspect most would sacrifice a short term gain if doing so jeopardized a longer term aspiration.
Keeping the Team “Healthy”– It would be hard to talk about sports or business “dynasties” without talking about the importance of keeping the team in tact and healthy. For athletes, this means literally. Many an athlete has ended a career early because of injury. Stops and starts because of chronic injury is something that prevents sustainability. Sustainability requires a vigilance to keeping the body and mind healthy which usually takes an ultra-strong commitment to training on the field and off. In business, the “healthy” team means doing your part as leaders to not only acquire the right talent, but to create an environment of nurturing ad development that supports retention and peak performance. It also means keeping “unhealthy” influences, behaviors and practices far away from the human capital you’ve invested so much to develop.
A Culture of Learning– As trite as it may sound, this may in fact be the most important common denominator of sustainable performers. Almost every “hall of fame” athlete we know appears to have that “hard wired” sense of learning built into them. It’s a hunger for learning that seems to disappear quickly after the initial successes of “one hit wonders”. But for sustainable leaders, that hunger for learning is almost obsessive. And the same is true of long term business success. It’s evident when you walk in the doors of these companies. Everything from the charts you see on the walls, to the type of conversation and dialog you witness, speaks of learning.

As always, these represent only a subset of what I believe are the most powerful differentiators of long term sustainable success. I welcome your additions, comments and thoughts as well.

There are no doubt places in our performance management programs where we can apply these principles. Start with the core and build from there. Do you have that “solid core” of vision and values? Or is this something you constantly change from year to year. Are you flexible and adaptable with respect to your annual goals, objectives and KPI’s? Or have your operating objectives, measures, targets and strategies remained the same for years or even decades? As ironic and paradoxical as this is, many companies have this backwards. They constantly mess with the vision and values, yet they have objectives, measures and targets that rarely get challenged or updated over many years. That’s always an alarm bell for me.

But it shouldn’t stop there. For example, have you built the right perspectives and timeframes into your performance program? Do you have more than just short term goals for achievement? Do you also have longer term sustainability measures to complement that dimension of your scorecard? Have you used your performance management program as a tool to develop, nurture and retain your human capital? And have you really started down that road of continuous learning?

As I mentioned in a previous post, a good performance management program is not just about measures and metric reporting. It is about a holistic and integrated platform for building sustainable business success.

-b

PS- As for Freddy, best of luck at Augusta. I know he’ll be back. The decade is still young.

Author: Bob Champagne is Managing Partner of onVector Consulting Group, a privately held international management consulting organization specializing in the design and deployment of Performance Management tools, systems, and solutions. Bob has over 25 years of Performance Management experience and has consulted with hundreds of companies across numerous industries and geographies. Bob can be contacted at bob.champagne@onvectorconsulting.com

Revisiting an Old Truism…

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Bob Champagne

Yesterday, I posted the following to my twitter followers:

“Still amazed at the brilliance and power of the simple phrase ‘what gets measured, gets managed’ “

While I enjoy a good truism from time to time, I generally don’t like being bombarded by them all day long by the myriad of tweeters who feel compelled to “carpet bomb” me with unsolicited life skills at the rate of about 3-5 per minute. I’m sure you can relate.

But last night, I really couldn’t restrain myself, because as I was in the middle of reviewing a performance report (from one of my clients who is just starting on their Performance Management journey), I began to ask myself why certain metrics were outperforming even my boldest expectations, and it was happening so quickly. I began to challenge myself: What did I do differently to inspire this level of performance? (yeah right!) What was the manager or team doing differently in the way of practices or approach? Was there something wrong with the metric or the data?

And then, just like that, the “moment of clarity” hit me like a ton of bricks. Maybe, just maybe, that old management “buzz phrase”- the one we all quote so much as Performance Management practitioners- really does work! What gets measured, really does get managed!!!

I shouldn’t have been surprised, because I genuinely do believe how important tracking something can be to the end result- hence, I have always “bought in” to that old truism. But I was. Not by the fact that measuring something influences the outcome in a positive way, but by the degree to which it overshadows every other part of the Performance Management equation.

In an era where there is so much discussion on visualization (dashboards, scorecards,…), process improvement (LEAN, Six Sigma, BPM), technology integration, leadership, culture, analysis, modeling tools, appraisals, reward structures, et al.,-I am convinced that the incremental value they each add individually, pales in comparison to the basic fundamentals of MEASURING and TRACKING.

There is no doubt that the best and most successful EPM processes out there have most if not all of the “other” tactics and components listed above. But most would tell you that the most important driver of their success was the decision to start measuring, and the sustained commitment of leadership to embed that simple discipline into the culture. Things like automation, data quality, modeling, reward structures were all secondary to the equation.

Now, since we’re putting so much emphasis on the measurement and tracking part of the EPM solution, let me say a little more about what I mean by “measurement”. Just because it doesn’t carry a huge monetary price tag, doesn’t mean it can’t be applied incorrectly. Doing it right involves several things, often best done in the sequence suggested below:

Ensure the “manager” and “performer” both care (at some level) about the outcome desired- it doesn’t have to be “to die for” levels of passion and excitement, but it has to be something that is important to both players
Establish a key metric that measures the result, and if you want, a few (2-3 tops) that would be good indicators of intermediate success (things that would be drivers or enablers of the outcome)
Collect some data and establish a baseline- get a feel for where you are and where you’ve been
Set an initial target, but don’t get too caught up in it. You will probably change it after you better understand the dynamics at play. All your target is initially is a “stake in the ground” to get the process started
Start tracking the metric. Don’t over complicate it. Excel is fine for now, If you have to use a sheet of paper, a flip chart or a cocktail napkin, so be it. The important thing is that you start tracking it.
Make the results visible. Post them on a wall. Let your team see you look at it and update it.
“Talk it up”. Recognize achievements. Modify targets. Talk about gaps. Celebrate successes.

As you can see, it’s more than sitting in your office and studying data. And it does begin to touch some of the things I referenced earlier like leadership skills, reporting and communication, etc.. But it doesn’t require a multi million dollar investment and successful completion of the whole EPM platform before you can start producing visible results.

Once you get traction, you’ll see that there is more potential in front of you. That’s the time to start adding the other pieces to the mix. At that point, you will have demonstrated some initial results, so making the case for the type of refinements necessary to fully leverage EPM within your company becomes much easier. As this occurs, the investment will undoubtedly increase (in proportion to the benefit potential of course), and the need to effectively orchestrate multiple functions and stakeholders becomes more and more essential. Building an EPM structure that captures all of the potential value in the business is a long journey that requires deep commitment from the organization.

But the measurement part, by itself, can drive significant improvement. We’ve seen it over and over again with our clients. Will it capure the full magnitude of opportunity out there? No. But it will get you started down the right path and it will build a basic skill that will become more and more critical as you go further with your EPM process. Few of the other tools and components mentioned above, if individually applied, would make anywhere close to that kind of difference.

Too many companies make the mistake of avoiding important initiatives while they wait for leadership to make the “big plunge”. They view change as impossible until leadership demonstrates their commitment in the form of that big investment in new tools, technology, people, etc. But that’s not how successful companies did it in the eras that preceded us. And there are many companies succeeding today to varying degrees without these big investments. Sure, success is relative to potential, and while they may not be achieving 100% of it, they are achieving infinitely more than the company that sits and waits.

The analogy I’ll leave you with is the golfer or tennis player who wont commit to significant improvement until he gets the new racket or latest clubs on the market. But we all know how flawed that logic is, and it gets reinforced for me every time I get beat by a more seasoned golfer who is playing with that 40 year old set of steel shafted blades, and drivers with weathered wooden heads.

Assignment for today- pick an area you want to improve and start measureing it. Give it a few weeks and see how it goes.

Oh..which reminds me…its time for the daily “weigh in”- oh crap!!!

-b

Dashboards Versus Scorecards- Its all about the decisions it facilitates…

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Bob Champagne

The one thing that most everyday drivers fear is that infamous “check engine light”. Unless its during the first few seconds of startup (the point at which every indicator on the dashboard lights up for a few seconds), a “check engine” alert is one of the few that signals that indicate big problems are imminent unless something changes fast…as in, stop the car soon and diagnose, or run the risk of being abandoned on the highway with a very costly repair. If you are someone who doesn’t take your vehicle’s indicator lights seriously, trust me (from experience), this is not one you want to ignore.

Dashboards, Indicators, and Alerts…

There are many indicators around us that alert us to changes in status of a process, and deviation from what may be considered to be a “normal operating condition”. And the place where most of these indicators are visible is on our dashboards. Whether it’s the dashboard of your vehicle, the cockpit display on an aircraft, the bridge on a ship, or a control room in a power plant; it’s the one central place where status is monitored and response strategies are determined, most often by the operator of the asset.

Of course, these deviations from the norm that show up on our “dashboards” occur in varying degrees, and can signal very different things. A “service soon” indicator light your car dashboard is more “suggestive”, and usually means its time for an oil change or tune up. But you’ve generally got some time before it becomes a bigger issue. A “low fuel” indicator on the other hand, is a bit more significant, and usually means you’ve got a finite quantity of miles left before you are what we might call “SOL” (although I’ve tested this threshold on occasion and can attest to the fact that there is some (albeit small) “cushion” past 0 to rely upon). And then there is the “check engine” light that most often means PULL OVER ASAP ( as soon as safe and practical -but SOON).

I’m not sure about you, but I view the “check engine” light as analogous to to an “airspeed alert” that a pilot might get right before a stall condition, or a traffic alert he gets when another aircraft is within the allowed separation tolerance. You might not yet be “past the point of no return”, but you’re pretty darn close.

Dashboards and Scorecards: Is there a difference?

In the Performance Management discipline, we often hear people refer to the terms “Dashboard” and “Scorecard” rather indiscriminately, with little if any conscious distinction as to what they each connote. I’ve often avoided getting too “wound up” about this, because getting caught up in corporate “buzz phrases” and semantics can cause us to miss the bigger issues at play. But after reflecting on this a bit, I think the differences here are in fact worthy of some discussion. Not because the words themselves are super important, but because it is critical that both components (whatever you call them) need to be part of your EPM solution.

So here are is my take on the critical distinctions between the two:

Purpose: Dashboards are about helping you navigate the journey. Scorecards are about how successful the journey was.
Type of indicators included: Scorecards generally contain outcome results, Dashboards are usually comprised of leading or predictive indicators
Timeframe: Scorecards are periodic and longer term (weekly, monthly, annual trends) in the review horizon, while Dashboards are shorter term and can even be real time
Reaction– Scorecards should provoke next steps that involve introspection and analysis (drill downs, mining insights, etc.) where dashboards usually are designed to “signal” or “provoke” immediate actions or course corrections
Targets– Scorecards usually report against a target, threshold or benchmark as a percentage gap and trend. Dashboards generally report metrics within or against tolerance ranges, outside of which signal a required change

As with anything, these are not hard and fast rules, but they should give you a sense of where I personally see the distinctions.

Sure, there are some grey areas here. Outcomes for some, may only be a part of a journey for others. There are also cases where an an outcome indicator might be so important that it is worth tracking in both places- on the dashboard AND the scorecard. For example, some car dashboards have an indicator that tells you what MPG you are getting out of your fuel consumption in real time. But while MPG would normally be an “outcome” metric (i.e.scorecard material), it may also be useful to some of us in watching the degradation or improvement to MPG as we change driving patterns (rapid “gunning” and braking, versus more constant speeds, for example).

Examples for the Fairway

A conventional golf scorecard

A few days ago someone posted about this same topic, using golf as their main analogy. And while I agreed with most of what he said, some of his examples created pause as I though of my time on the golf course.

We both agreed for example that the “stroke count versus par” was what you would always find on a conventional golf scorecard (hard to argue with that!). However, I would also say that stats like # of greens in regulation, puts per green, club distances, etc. should also be part of your scorecard, although maybe at a level or two down the chain. After all, these are things that need to be analyzed and challenged OFF the course (although I have been known to peak at them from time to time during the round). In fact, it is not uncommon for many golfers to track these very stats on their scorecard right underneath or beside their actual stroke count.

But if you put all of that on the scorecard, then what does the dashboard look like? We’ll if we think about it in terms of the 5 criteria I provide above, it would likely be things like yardages to the hole (what i need in order to make my club selection), wind direction (what I need to shape my shot), # stokes ahead or behind the lead (what I need to manage my strategy), speed of the green (necessary in determining the line and speed of your putt), and the myriad of other factors that are utilized by professional golfers before and during a round. And while many of us may manage the above by “feel”, just take a look at a professional’s yardage book and caddy’s notes and you’ll see what looks strikingly similar to a dashboard (albeit manually illustrated with stray marks and notes). And if you want to spend the money, you can always buy some pretty cool dashboards for your iphone or blackberry.

Some Final Thoughts…

I think some of the confusion between dashboards and scorecards is because metrics are often combined in the same visualization, regardless of whether it is called a scorecard or dashboard. Even automobile dashboards have a place for total accumulated miles. Golf GPS devices enable you to enter score count. As I said before, the distinction is sometimes burry, and often not even that critical.

What’s much more important is whether or not you have the full compliment of indicators you need to manage the business. When most executives ask their teams to develop “a dashboard”, the content of what they are really asking for is unclear. Are they hungry for better tracking of results? Or are they asking for better metrics- those that will enable better decisions and more responsiveness? Or are they simply looking for better analysis of the results?

Unless you understand that, it will be hard to deliver on any of these requests or mandates, regardless of what you end up naming it. In the end, Scorecards and Dashboards are merely visualization tools. What';s more important is that you embed and align the right content into these tools that will enable a clear line of sight between vision, objectives, KPI’s, metrics, and initiatives that tells the complete story and enables those who are in execution roles to be successful.

The bottom line is that you are the designer and architect of the info that is displayed, and so all these distinctions- whether it is between scorecard and dashboard, long term versus short term, leading versus lagging, etc.— are really only important in terms of their usefulness in helping YOU design a system that is relevant and useful within your organization. What you call these things is not near as important as whether the system produces the right outcomes.

-b

Making Your Targets Achievable…Its about Progress not Perfection!

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Bob Champagne

As I was relaxing over the weekend watching the ATT Pro-Am, where more than a few players (and celebs) entered the final day well within contention. There are many golfers that are entering 2011 in good form for so early in the year, and while there was only one winner, there were at least a dozen players (from the 40-somethings like Phil and VJ to the cadre of “young guns” that appear to have come out of nowhere and are now taking center stage) within striking distance when the day started on Sunday.

As it turned out, the winning team was in fact one of those young guns(D.A. Points), who ironically stood beside his celebrity playing partner- not other than the “old fart” we all remember from caddy shack, Mr Bill Murray himself. And what a finish it was.

But what was interesting about this day was that there were so many guys playing great golf, and who had clearly taken there game to the next level. It was kind of odd listening to the Mickelson (after mucking up a few key holes that likely cost him a come from behind win), describe the tournament as “really fun” and his play as “much improved”. Sure, anyone making tens of millions a year could probably maintain that attitudeafter “letting one slip away”. But I actually watched that interview thinking the guy was genuine. In my view, good athletes get where are not only through hard work and unwavering commitment, but also by recognizing and reinforcing the principle of improvement as much as they do the actual win.

As you read the below post, I encourage you to think about how you can apply this principle to your periodic goal setting process, whether its setting new goals or negotiating mid course corrections. I hope you enjoy what I believe is some pretty timeless advice.

—————————

From my previous post “PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION”…

Good performance managers can separate the “aspiration” from the “journey” toward it. Notice I said “toward it”, and not “to it”. Performance Management is a process, not and end game. It’s a journey “toward” a state of perfection, knowing that you may never fully achieve it. It’s working damn hard at something knowing that you never really graduate or declare a perfect ending. There’s always something else to aspire to. Our job as performance managers is to manage the process or the journey, using the “end game” only as a beacon that you navigate toward.

To some of you, this may contradict one of my earlier writings on ‘not accepting mediocrity’. In fact, there is a contradiction, and it’s by design. Goal setting is an art, always trying to find the balance between being too ambitious, but at the same time, not accepting mediocrity. Good goal setting will stretch the capabilities of the individual without demoralizing them with repeated failure. For example, an organization may aspire to six sigma performance standards, but manage the process in a way that reinforces and rewards milestones along the way. And when you’re at six sigma, there’s still something to aspire to.

Think about the game of golf. Hogan once said that man will never play a perfect round of golf, because of the nature of the game. Think about it. A perfect score of 18 is beyond human reach in the game as we know it (a hole in one on every hole). Hogan also said that when he plays a round of golf, he can expect only a handful of shots to go exactly as he planned them. Wow! Now that’s amazing. Here’s a world class golfer at his peak saying that out of 65-75 strokes, only 4 or 5 will pass his test of perfection.

But despite the fact that we’ll never achieve that perfect end state, the game of golf does challenge us with goals of par (what should a good golfer shoot), birdies, eagles, double eagles, and those rare but attainable hole in ones. The game’s scoring is also adjusted for a player’s handicap, which changes as his skill improves. There are not many sports that encourage and motivate players ‘toward’ a level of perfection, without ever fully achieving it, than the game of golf does.

So sticking with this analogy, how do golfers motivate themselves in a world where they’ll never fully achieve “perfection”? Most good golfers play each stroke, one at a time, putting a lot more focus on # of fairways hit, GIR’s (# greens hit in regulation), # of sand saves, # of up and downs, and average # of putts per green. That’s how they do it. They set meaningful and achievable milestones for the journey, knowing that if they achieve those, the final score will take care of itself. Turn on the TV every Sunday afternoon, and you’ll see it in action. Even if you don’t like golf, you can’t help but being impressed by how these guys and women manage their game (their journey).

If you like the above analogies and can relate to them, there are some great writings on the subject that will illustrate this point better than I ever could. Three that I recommend are “Golf is not a game of perfect”, “Life is not a game of perfect”, and “The golf of your dreams”, all written by Dr. Bob Rotella, a noted sports psychologist. While these may play more to the golfers among us, his style of writing lends itself to wide applications of these principles, from the workplace to life in general.

So as you set goals, and manage your people toward achieving them, remember to not only focus on the ‘end game’ or ultimate aspiration of perfection, but to also place an equal if not greater focus on the journey and the milestones we must achieve along the way.

-b

Managing YOUR Performance on Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Bob Champagne

I can’t believe I am getting caught up in the ‘linking of blog topics to holidays’, but after having some fun with the whole Suberbowl thing, I figured why not get caught up in today’s Valentines Day madness.

While Valentines day is positioned as a way to demonstrate your love, passion, and commitment to your significant other, I am convinced that all this was really created and perpetuated by a secret cartel of rose growers, flower shoppes, jewelery stores, restaurant owners, and chocolate retailers. But whoever is responsible for this madness, it’s still a big day that is full of expectations, and a day that most of us in committed relationships would be advised to “deliver on” effectively. And by “effectively”, I mean BEYOND expectation!

So how on earth am I going to connect Valentine’s day to the topic of performance management? Well, believe it or not, there are more than a few ways to make the “tie in”. For example, one is to do what most did with their Suberbowl blogs and simply focus on all of the statistics and trends around V-day, like $$ spent and volume of product purchases. But that would be too easy, and I suspect there will be more than enough of that on today’s blog sites and news reports.

Instead, I’ll focus on something that may actually yield some real value to you if you want to protect and nurture that relationship with your “main squeeze”, by providing you with a simple “performance framework” to make sure you get through the day with “everything” in tact.

Applying the basic principles of balanced scorecard and performance management, we’ll start with the “vision” and “mission”. One thing to remember when you develop a performance framework is that your vision and mission should always be viewed relative to the challenge you are trying to manage. But as a general rule, we view a vision from a longer term perspective, and a mission from a shorter term horizon.

So what is the the vision for our relationships with our significant other ? For the hopeless romantics in the crowd, the instinctive reaction would be to focus on big aspirations….things like “a long and happy life”, “to love, honour and cherish”, “to grow old together and die in each others arms”, and the myriad of other syrupy catch phrases that are there for the taking. For others, it might be something as simple as “a week without nagging” or “getting my husband to learn to ‘pick up’ after himself”. It’s all relative to your situation and ambition, and how far you are away from it. For now, we’ll stick to a vision geared to a “happy and healthy life with my loving spouse” (its a good common denominator for all of the above), along with some specificity about what that ‘looks like’ in terms of happiness, healthiness, etc…But since vision definition is not the main purpose here, I’ll leave it at that. You’ve got the idea.

Missions are generally shorter term in nature and focus on intermediate milestones in pursuit of the long term vision. For companies, they are still usually multi-year in nature, but for our purpose here, I’m going to break protocol and make the mission simply “getting through the big day”. Again, my purpose today is getting to a discussion of our specific objectives and KPI’s, not to do a tutorial on strategic planning. But it’s worth pointing out that, depending on where you stand (organizationally, timeframe wide, role etc), what looks like a mission to some, may feel like a strategy to others, and vice versa. Thinking about a mission from a military perspective helps me sometimes (and no, I’m not making a parallel between a military event and my marriage, although most of us could probably relate to that from time to time). Suffice it to say that missions are sometimes big, and sometimes small; may be shorter term or could be longer term. And while from the perspective of top leadership something might look like a tactic, troops may in fact view the very same thing as their “mission”. Its all context dependent.

So just for today, lets consider the mission as “getting through Valentines day 2011 with (as I said before), “everything in tact”-which for me, means not having to make apologies for my forgetfulness, incorrect gift choices, and if I’m lucky, a happy and grateful spouse who has embraced my gesture of appreciation.

Now, for the fun part, lets talk Objectives and KPI’s...In business, the balanced scorecard purists would say there are 4 basic categories (perspectives) within which our objectives, goals and KPI’s should be managed. These “big 4″ most often include: customer, financial, employee, and internal (operations and processes). Sure there are other variants of this…but let’s hang with these for now, and try and apply these to the “v-day specific” mission we defined above.

Again, the flow will be perspective–objective—and kpi’s ( the indicators through which we’ll measure our success).

I. Customer (Ms. Valentine)

For our application today, we’ll define “Ms or Mr Valentine as “the customer” in our little example. After all, it is their perspective that will make the determination of whether we “get through the day in tact”. So what are our objectives for today? Here are mine:

Objective 1: Avoid Disappointment (KPI: # of times Mr. Valentine says “Sh**, I forgot!!!” or “I wish i would have done…” to himself at any point throughout the day—2011 target=0)
Objective 2: Delight my Valentine (KPI: # of times the wife says “oh Bob, you shouldn’t have!!!” —2011 target=>2)
Objective 3: Demonstrate Sincerity ( KPI: # of verbal or non verbal signals suggesting that I “was just trying to make up for past screw ups”, or “trying to get an early jump on the objective below—2011 target=1 (its usually more than that :))
Objective 4: Generate “reciprocal appreciation” (KPI: Gestures of Reciprocal Appreciation- I’ll term these GRA’s for short (KPI and target =confidential!!! :)) —SPECIAL NOTE- be careful this one is not obvious, or you will jeapordize #3 above

II. Financial (Don’t break the bank)

Of course, achieving the above is easy if your resources are unlimited. But for most of us, be it money or time, it’s never that easy. So you’ll have to accomplish the above within your means and ability. Let’s try these:

Objective 1: Stay on Budget (supporting KPI’s: variance to planned budget—target=0 variance)
Objective 2: Maximize ROI of gift purchases (# GRA’s per $ of V-day investment—2011 target =also Confinential-i.e. providing target would provide clues as to the target of the GRA metric above)

III. Operational (Make the day run smoothly)

In any business, there are those things that are reflective of how streamlined or smoothly the operation or process performs. Personally, I see these as “level 2″ contributors to the “customer” and “financial” objectives, but they are no less important, and if they are not proactively managed, they will cause you to fail. A few of those that are pertinent to my success on my spouse’s special day include:

Objective 1: Ensure timeliness of delivery (KPI: Deviation from planned delivery times—2011 target= <+/- 15 minutes)
Objective 2: Spread the “joy” throughout the day – i.e. sometimes, lots of little surprises leading to the big one is best! (KPI: Interval between surprises—2011 target= 3 hours)
Objective 3: Time the big surprise well (KPI: be on time (for dinner, the big gift, etc…)—target =0 deviation from plan)…or else there may not be time for the GRA that may follow.

IV. Employees (Managing the Influencers and Stakeholders)

Over the last few decades, I have found that getting through the day can be quite challenging amidst the various distractions that can emerge. Thats why its important to arm yourself with some help. For me, there are three sources of that “help”, and each plays a valuable role in navigating the special day.

Objective 1: Keep the delivery guys happy- (KPI: generate one thank you from each delivery vendor—2011 target=100%)
Objective 2: Leverage the little ones…not only can your kids they help, but they can also be instrumental in “spreading the joy” throughout the day with small gifts or gestures of appreciation to mommy. The real objective here is simply to keep the day top of mind, and minimize forgetfulness and/ or unplanned delays (KPI: # Delays/ forgotten deliveries from the kids—target= <2 (their teenagers after all!))
Objective 3: Impress the “influencers” (KPI: # of relevant people the wife brags to (inlaws, friends, etc.)—2011target= 3)

Now there are clearly strategies and tactics that support each of these. In your company, these are the initiatives and investments that help you achieve all this. But for today, these will be little things like tipping the driver, timing your deliveries for maximum “optics” and co-worker recognition, setting your teenagers alarm clock…you get the idea.

And of course, there are the weightings for the objectives and KPI’s themselves. For example, you don’t want to overweight the financials, or else you may risk the GRA effect. Or overweighting the contribution of others (like your kids) may add unecesary risk to the equation, and could also jeopardize the sincerity objective. Again, use your judgement here.

But hey, isn’t that what building a performance measurement framework is like in real life? It’s both an art AND a science. And of course, there are the intangibles and things you just can’t track or keep score of . And often, especially for those who are single, you do need a competitive advantage. So be careful about everything you declare and put in writing (which may conflict with the advice of the balanced scorecard purists), or else you may risk your competetive advantage.

As I wrote this, I found myself sometimes getting sidetracked (duh…really?)…thinking about things like leading indicators, scenario modeling, gaming theory, contingency planning etc…so, lucky for you, I had to keep bringing myself back on point. Otherwise this could have really led down some interesting and wacky paths.

But hopefully, I’ve given you enough fodder to help keep your day on track, and “if your lucky”…Nevermind, I’ll leave it at that. Use your imagination, and good luck!

-b

Author Archives: Bob Champagne

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