Staff & Organization

Squirrel moments happen all around us, and with greater frequency than we’d care to admit. As flawed human beings, it’s easy for us to get sidetracked from what we should be doing, by some urgent new distraction that seems terribly critical in the moment. Yet most of us eventually manage to refocus, once we become aware (through our own cognitive skills or because a friend or colleague points it out to us) of how badly the squirrel moment has driven us off-course. Typically it is the speed with which we are able to re-calibrate ourselves that ultimately determines the degree of damage, if any, that is caused by the distraction.

Without a thorough analysis and understanding of goals, objectives, and KPIs, any plan that is developed will simply be a formalized road map for throwing darts at a wall. Goals and objectives tell us the destination. KPIs give us continuous feedback as to whether or not we’re on course for our journey, or if deviations from plan are occurring.

When working with clients on strategy execution I tell them they’re about to embark on a journey of great change. A change in the way they measure and manage performance, a change in the way they report and analyze results, and a change in how they generate alignment from top to bottom throughout the organization. The speech is intended to be inspiring, lifting them to new heights of organizational achievement, but is just as often met by eye rolling that says, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

I love mantras. I love how they can carry a paragraph full of meaning in just a few words, and because of this be fabulous reminders of what matters. I have mantras for running (“light and quick, here and now”) and mantras for dealing with setbacks (“onwards and upwards!”) and – yes, you guessed it – mantras for measurement! Here you go, I’m gonna share some of them with you...

Pardon my deception by attracting you to read this blog article by stating “business analytics” in its title. Analytics are a means to an end where the end-game is enterprise performance improvement. That is, analytics are enablers, not necessarily the root cause for improvement. And there are obviously multiple other contributors to organizational improvement including having enough money to spend on improving and having good executive leadership.

I've had more than a few conversations with clients of late that revolve around the subject of core competency. What is it today? What should it be? What do we want it to be? Must we choose between product innovation, customer care, or operational excellence, or is it possible to have all three?