How did you go? How do you know?
The answer can only be determined based on what success measures were agreed upon at the start. Simple? Yes, in theory, but often not in practise.
When I think “high performance” I see three key areas having a direct impact:
- The business outcomes
- The people – your greatest organisational asset
- The culture – formed by the leaders of the business
Here are some tips for how I have learned to effectively and efficiently measure performance of both myself as a leader and my team.
Measuring the business outcomes – you can’t know what you don’t know
– Start by asking the most important question: what does the overall business need to achieve? If you are clear on the organisational priorities that require focus, then you have a clear definition of what success looks like for the overall business. The team’s performance needs to relate directly back to these priorities and should be agreed upfront by the leaders in the organisation
– At the commencement of each new year, ideally the chief executive and general manager together with the leader of each business unit should confirm key performance indicators for the business unit – these should be split into short term and longer term measurements. For example, in a marketing team:
- Short term might address share of voice based on the media buy, digital metrics, specific campaign targets, customer acquisition, x-sell/up-sell, or net promoter score
- Longer term might address the building of brand health; increasing brand awareness, brand consideration or customer satisfaction
– Written down, signed off. I call it our daily purpose framework and from this point, the team has meaningful performance measures to devise their strategic and executional plan. Within the plan, metrics or targets should be applied to each of the initiatives.
Ask me about our performance at any time
Well known management consultant and author Peter Drucker once said “What gets measured, gets managed” so it’s important we measure what really matters. In large corporates and complex businesses (or those leading who make it complex!), it is easy to get caught up in trying to evaluate everything.
You could spend all day measuring so be clear on how your organisation makes a profit, and then ensure your measures (are motivating) and your programs contribute to growth.
The next step is to get the outcomes of your activity (what you are measuring) into a report that is updated and communicated consistently. Our team has a Dashboard which is as visually interesting as it is intellectually informing. We have a person in the team responsible every week for updating and socialising the Dashboard – she gets input from a variety of sources and when the Dashboard is emailed out to the team, a brief commentary accompanies it.
Every fortnight when we host our team meetings, we spend time reviewing the Dashboard and discussing performance. Everyone in the team is informed, everyone is responsible and everyone is very clear about their purpose in contributing to the organisation’s performance.
Measuring the people – more words than numbers
At the start of each year (or as new team members are hired) we create individual performance plans. Aligned to their area of responsibility, skills and experience we are clear on what success looks like for that individual (and how their part contributes to the overall sum of parts) and we discuss their achievements (as well as areas of development) formally twice a year (half and full year performance reviews) and less formally in fortnightly one on ones.
The better you understand your employees personally, the more effectively you can influence them professionally. You don’t have to be a psychologist, though I think a good leader has to be interested in wanting to bring out the best in people. A person who sees it as an investment in getting to know their people will have an advantage when it comes to improved performance.
Measuring the culture
This is always a reflection of the leadership and whilst there are many ways to measure a company culture, I tend to use the simple rule of thumb: talented people will stay in your business if they are inspired and engaged. They probably won’t stay forever and nor should they be encouraged to. But if you can retain consistently high performers for up to three years, then chances are you have a culture that is a competitive advantage.
Empowering your people to make smart decisions, creating an environment that hasn’t lost perspective e.g. has a sense of humour, coupled with each and everyone having a sense of accountability are some factors needed for a high performance culture.
It’s no surprise people, culture and performance are interrelated. You can’t achieve high performance if all three aren’t a priority and you don’t really know how you’re tracking if you aren’t measuring each separately.
The real proof of your success of course will be the results achieved by the business – the priorities of which you were involved in setting.
Jac Phillips is the head of brand & marketing at Bank of Melbourne. She has more than 20 years’ of marketing and communications expertise across both traditional and online environment and is passionate about conducting business across Asia-Pacific, improving diverisity and creating an inclusive workforce.
