Lean Tip #2986 – Watch Your Key Performance Measures
Your strategic plan should include key
performance indicators (KPIs) for each initiative. These may be measures for
individual employees, departments and the business as a whole.
You must keep a constant eye on the KPIs,
reviewing them at meetings and in between. This can be monitored by a suitable
KPI dashboard.
Remember that what gets measured gets done. This
is a fundamental principle of behavior and organizational change. You have to
have the right metrics; otherwise nothing will happen. The right metrics are
critical for driving the desired actions, behavior and results.
Lean Tip #2987 – Be Agile and Ready to Adjust
No plan survives the first contact with
reality. It’s important for your implementation plan to be agile and flexible.
You can’t predict the future exactly, so be
prepared to adapt and adjust the plan as conditions change internally and
externally. You have to recognize that executing the plan is interactive and
requires continuous adaptation, all focused on moving the needle toward your
desired future state. A strategic plan is a living, breathing document.
Lean Tip #2988 – Engage Your Team
To implement your strategy both effectively and
efficiently, you need to create focus and drive accountability. There are a few
ways in which you can keep your team engaged throughout the implementation
process:
·
Determine roles and responsibilities
early on. Use a RACI matrix to clarify your teammate’s roles and ensure that
there are no responsibility gaps.
·
Delegate work
effectively. While it can be tempting to have your eyes on everything,
micromanagement will only hold you back. Once you’ve defined everyone’s roles
and responsibilities, trust that your team will execute their tasks according
to the implementation plan.
·
Communicate with your
team and ensure that everyone knows how their individual work contributes to
the project. This will keep everyone motivated and on track.
Lean Tip #2989 – Get Closure on Implementation
Once you implement the strategy, connect with
everyone involved to confirm that their work feels complete. Implementing a
strategy isn’t like a puzzle that’s finished when the last piece is set. It’s
like planting a garden that continues to grow and change even when you think
you’re done with your work.
Getting closure from your team will be the
second to last milestone of your strategy implementation and is a crucial step
toward completion.
Lean Tip #2990 – Reflect on the Implemented
Strategy
Conduct a post-mortem or retrospective to
reflect on the implemented strategy, as well as evaluate the success of the
implementation process and the strategy itself. This step is a chance to
uncover lessons learned for upcoming projects and strategies which will allow
you to avoid potential pitfalls and embrace new opportunities in the future.
Lean Tip #2991 – Develop Metrics for Every
Project
Developing performance metrics for individual
projects enables you to examine your team's efficiency on the project. If they
aren't fulfilling the metrics, you can tell right away that they are
underperforming.
Some team members like to hide under the
shadows of others and do nothing. For individual accountability, apply the
metrics to each of them.
Lean Tip #2992 – Set the Right Targets to
Challenge Your Team
Your team members may not be as unmotivated as
you think; they probably don't have the right targets to challenge them.
When tasks are too easy, employees become
complacent because they know they'll be fine with the barest minimum. Don't
give them impossible tasks just because you want to challenge them. You'll end
up killing their morale.
Aim for a balance. The idea is to make them
stretch themselves beyond their comfort zones to get the job done. The outcome
might surprise you.
Lean Tip #2993 – Establish Your Success
Measures
Once you are clear of the goals of your
performance management system, the next step is to establish what success
should look like for each one. In addition to agreeing on success measures
related to specific performance goals, it is important to define some measures
for your performance management processes (i.e. the actual mechanics). You’ll
want to know how easy your employees and managers find the processes and tools
they use, how time consuming they are, how well they are implemented, what
proportion of people are following the processes and whether people are demonstrating
the necessary performance management skills.
Lean Tip #2994 – Align Your Performance
Measurement Strategies With Your Organizational Objectives
When any team is developing a performance
measurement framework, they must make sure they have clear, defined goals
across the organization. Plan out what you want to accomplish before you decide
what individual performance goals you will measure.
It's also important to measure factors outside
of financial objectives. Make sure to incorporate internal, operational
processes into your performance measurement system.
Lean Tip #2995 – Focus on a Few Key Metrics, Rather
Than a Slew of Data.
As you begin to identify KPIs for your
business, less is worth more. Rather than choosing dozens of metrics to measure
and report on you should focus on just a few key ones.
If you track too many KPIs, you might become
overwhelmed with the data and lose focus.
As you can imagine, every company, industry,
and business model is different so it is difficult to pinpoint an exact number
for the amount of KPIs you should have. However, a good number to aim for is
somewhere between two to four KPIs per goal. Enough to get a good sense of
where you stand but not too many where there's no priority.
Lean Tip #2996 – Offer a Growth Mindset
Managers must offer their employees a
continuous learning environment – nurturing, growing and developing them to be
better. For example, create career paths for their best people so they grow as
workers to benefit their organizations and people to benefit their careers,
even if it means that you may lose that person because heart-based leaders want
the best for their people.
Lean Tip #2997 – Managers Must be Humble
While it’s hard to measure, it’s the striving
to be humble that matters. New managers have to be humble enough to put other
people ahead of themselves, not taking credit for organizational
accomplishments (since they recognize that the people in the trenches are the
ones that “make things happen”). Humble leaders gladly accept the role of
learners because they know it will make them better.
Lean Tip #2998 – Communicate Openly and
Authentically
This is how managers win the hearts of their
people – by being open and sharing plans for the future, communicating
important things to their people, and fostering a transparent culture. The last
thing you’ll see in a Servant Leader someone that hides behind closed doors.
They’re constantly communicating. Giving and receiving feedback on no less than
a weekly basis.
Lean Tip #2999 – Allow for Risks to be Taken
Servant Leaders are known for creating an
environment in which risks are taken, allowing those around them to feel safe
to exercise their creativity, communicate their ideas openly and provide input
to major decisions. Because there’s trust there not fear. It communicates to
employees of a sense of – “hey we are all in this together.”
Lean Tip #3000 – Listen to Your People!
Not just listening, but active listening. That
takes SKILL! They must be open to feedback, and be willing and agile to change
when they make mistakes (as a result of listening to constructive feedback that
will help them grow as leaders). This is essential in building credibility with
followers. When you listen well, you earn respect.
