Metrics_ How to Improve Key Business Results - Martin Klubeck [72]
If you said the goal, you'd be mistaken. A simple test is, if you sold one more (or one less) than the “goal,” would you be happier or not? How about ten more (or ten less)? One hundred? If it matters, then you're using the measure of success as the goal.
Where this becomes important is when the workforce needs to understand the purpose, the big picture, the mission and the vision of the organization. When you treat the worker as a partner in improvement, you don't attempt to manipulate (motivate) them by assigning “stretch goals” or by having them chase the measures instead of achieving the goal.
The true goal may be to improve the bottom line. Increasing sales is one possible task toward that end, and the idea of selling any particular number of any particular item would be a subtask. The number of items sold would constitute a measure of success.
When you chase the MoS you lose focus. You may reach the measure while failing to achieve the guiding goal. For example, you may sell five thousand units of the new item, but sales could drop significantly in the other product lines. This would not end up helping you achieve the goal.
Another way to look at it is to remember that any measure of success (or full blown metric) is only an indicator. Therefore, you should not celebrate the meeting of a MoS since it is not the goal; it is only an indicator of possibly reaching the goal.
Even when measures of success are properly used, managers occasionally make them tools for abuse by setting targets and thresholds.
Targets and Thresholds
Targets, like stretch goals, have the nasty habit of being re-written each time they are achieved. If you have a target, you can bet that it will be reached at the eleventh (if not final) hour. Again, there's no benefit to the workforce in achieving the target earlier than asked for since the most common response (after the small celebration and reward) is a new target to reach.
Targets (when misused) aren't moved as a result of logical, data-driven decisions. They are moved based on their achievement, or lack thereof. This means that the new target is set based only on how well you met the previous one—again using a poor indicator as the “truth.” The workforce again will come to understand the rules of the game quickly. If they reach the target early, the reward is usually the same as if they reach it at the last possible moment. Some managers reward last-second heroics more than they reward early achievement. Early success is seen as the manager's underestimation of the capabilities of the workers. The target wasn't “tough” enough, so why highly reward for reaching it?
And the games continue.
It behooves the workers to barely reach the target. The manager sees himself as an astute judge of the workers' capabilities and a shrewd motivator. The workforce is seen as hardworking and able to be encouraged. Everyone is happy.
Thresholds are the same as targets, but from a negative point of view. Instead of setting a bar higher each time and trying to reach it, the threshold sets the minimum acceptable performance and challenges the workforce to stay above it throughout.
Again, the workforce is smarter than the manipulators believe. They will stay above this minimum, but barely. If they exceed it too significantly, the minimum will be raised until they fail, at which time they will incur the unjust wrath of management for being incompetent.
The stories of workers telling new hires to “slow down” because the over energetic rookie will make them look bad is not a myth. Workforces learn the rules of the game and quickly adapt to the motivational tools used by poor managers.
You're probably wondering what the problem is with clearly articulating the acceptable levels of performance. It would seem to be good communication to make this clear to the workforce. And you'd be correct. But, when targets and thresholds