Metrics_ How to Improve Key Business Results - Martin Klubeck [50]
If you aren’t doing things the right way, you may find that you can continue to function and the business may continue to survive, but any meaningful improvement is highly unlikely. The best you will be able to hope for is to survive, but not thrive.
Root questions around the return may include
How well are we providing our key services?
In what ways can we improve our key services?
Questions around the investment may include
How much does it cost us to provide our key services?
How well are we managing our resources?
As we delve deeper into the answer key, more specific questions will become apparent. Remember though, the breadth of your root question will determine how far to the left you’ll need to go. The farther left on the Answer Key, the more broad or strategic the question.
State of the Union
Once you are effectively and efficiently running the business, you can turn your attention to how you manage your resources. The most valuable assets you have should be maintained with loving care. Yes, I’m talking about your workforce. Every boss I’ve ever had has touted the same mantra: “Our most valuable assets are our people.” Yet it’s amazing to me how poorly we take care of those admittedly invaluable assets.
I observe managers who take their BMWs to their dealers for scheduled maintenance, only use premium gasoline (regardless of the price of gas), and won’t park anywhere near another car—yet do absolutely nothing to maintain their workforce. No training plans, no employee satisfaction surveys, not even a suggestion program. They rarely listen to their staff and devalue them by never asking for input. If people are truly our greatest assets, then we should treat them as such.
This view of the organization is our “State of the Union” address. It tells us how healthy our organization is internally. While Return vs. Investment tells us how healthy the organization is from a customer and business point of view, the State of the Union tells us how healthy the culture is.
Besides the workforce, we also need to focus on the potential for our future. We can determine this by looking at how we are managing our growth toward maturity. Do we have good strategic plans for our future? Are we working toward our goals?
Root questions you may encounter in this area include the following:
How strong is the culture of recognition in our organization?
How strong is the loyalty of our workforce?
How well are our professional-development efforts working?
What is the expected future of our organization?
How do we stack up against our competition?
How well are we achieving our strategic goals?
The further to the right you move on the Answer Key, the more specific and tactical your root questions will become.
Answer Key: Third Tier
Figure 5-2 shows the next level of the Answer Key, in which we extend the branches to include Product/Service Health (effectiveness), Process Health (efficiency), Organizational Health (employee maintenance), and Future Health (projects and strategic planning).
Figure 5-2. The Answer Key, tiers one, two, and three
Most root questions boil down to wanting to know answers based on one of the views of the organization represented in the third tier. The titles—Product/Service Health, Process Health, Organizational Health, and Future Health—help us to understand the relationship of each branch to the other. They also help us understand where our metric fits. Along with the titles, we find an accompanying viewpoint to further assist in reading the Answer Key. These viewpoints show that each of the titles can be looked at from the perspective of Customers, the Business, the Workers, and finally Management.
Let’s figure out where your root question best fits.
Does your root question deal with how well you provide a service or product? Does it ask if you are doing the