Strategy

Squishy Goals Mean Squishy Outcomes

By |October 31st, 2014|Categories: Strategy|Tags: , , , , , , , , |Comments Off on Squishy Goals Mean Squishy Outcomes

Performance measurements are only as good as your goals.

Goals ► Priorities ► Outcomes ► Initiatives

Do your organizational goals sound something like this: Foster talent by building a culture that maximizes opportunities for growth. Sounds nice, right? But how would you measure that? How would you know when you’ve achieved it? The truth is, it would be next to impossible. Whether you’re creating goals at an organizational level or at an operational level, here are some tips for improving them so that you can demonstrate their achievement.

Describe the outcome.
The trick is to describe the result you hope to achieve rather than the activity. Measuring an activity can result in meaningless metrics. (It is also wise to stay away from words and phrases that cannot be measured such as maximize or more efficient.) Here’s a possibility: Growth and innovation will increase through training, mentoring, and creating time buffers around scheduled projects.

Studies have shown that goal specificity and level of difficulty have a direct impact on employee performance: Goals that are specific and challenging (but not unreasonable) lead to better performance by motivating employees.

Create line of sight.

Just as important, a clear line of sight should exist between corporate objectives and the goals set at the operational level—employees should be able to grasp their roles’ importance in the larger picture. In order to achieve this, it is helpful to include different levels of the organization in developing the goals to ensure consensus, cooperation, and realistic goal-setting.

Define the measure.

Once your goals have been determined, you will be able to think about how you will measure the outcome.

Performance measures should be as explicit as your goals, and answer the following:

It is an old saying but true: you cannot manage what
[ Read More ]

Reorgs and Crash Diets: What They Have in Common

By |May 6th, 2014|Categories: Strategy|Tags: , , , |Comments Off on Reorgs and Crash Diets: What They Have in Common

TransAccel is often asked to help organizations figure out where they should be three to five years from now, and we immediately set about assessing where they are, thinking about strategies, and devising transition plans. But here’s the thing: Very often the client wants to start with a structural reorganization.

Now the truth is if you start with a structural reorganization, it’s like going on a crash diet. Everybody knows the naughty non-foods you can cut out, just like everybody knows which low-performers could be eliminated or how work could be shuffled around to immediate effect. So you lose a few pounds by cutting out “empty calories” and get rid of some of the obvious encumbrances at work—a quick fix that’s very gratifying. But what happens after that? Usually all the weight comes right back (and then some) and the reorganization doesn’t really change a thing—everything reverts to the way it was. Why? Because the underlying behaviors are still the same.

A diet that relies on simply cutting calories is bound to plateau or fail because there’s considerably more to maintaining a healthy weight and body that includes exercise, eating complex carbohydrates, drinking plenty of water and getting plenty of rest. It is a lifestyle change. Likewise, restructuring an organization is much more complex than focusing solely on getting rid of problematic players or reshuffling the team. The key to sustainable organizational change is to look at the organization holistically and to define the operating model and its various components: roles, processes, governance, sourcing, services, and then structure, and how these are interconnected and measured. Are the right people in the right roles? Are there processes that could be simplified, platforms that could be shared? What
[ Read More ]