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Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:
Lean Tip #2476 – Leaders Be Yourself
There is no replacement for authenticity. People
can sense fakeness! Having to put on a face with your employees every day can
not only lose their trust, but it also makes work less enjoyable for you.
There's no need to overcompensate with certain
leadership styles based off of how other people lead -- especially if it is out
of your comfort zone. Behaving in a manner that is consistent with your beliefs
and values will give you more energy each day and it will send a message to
your employees to be themselves.
Lean Tip #2477 – Get Everyone Behind the Mission
and Keep Them There
One of the biggest challenges at a company,
especially as it grows, is keeping each employee excited about the work that
they're doing. When people are working intrinsically and feel like the work
that they are doing is the best possible way that they could be spending their
life at the moment, their output is going to be exponentially higher.
If they're basing part of their self concept on
the work that they are doing and they care deeply about it, then each day they
will be coming into work with the energy to give it all they have.
Lean Tip #2478 – Give People Freedom and Autonomy
If people feel like they have to be doing their
work in a particular way, have to wear certain things in the office, and can't
be themselves, they are going to be less happy and productive.
Having honest conversations about the type of
work they want to do, encouraging employees to take a goal or idea and run with
it, and letting them revolve their work around the lifestyle they want can create
momentum in the office -- encouraging employees to work harder on what they
enjoy most.
Lean Tip #2479 – Encourage Risk Taking
If there were a 40 percent chance that a
project one employee could take on would fail and a 60 percent chance it would
succeed, then the decision to pursue the project will be largely based on their
perception of the risk of failure. In a culture where failure is met with harsh
criticism and fear of being fired, these 60/40 decisions that, overall, would
benefit a company, won't be enacted.
Employees face decisions like these daily on
whether to try something a bit more ambitious than the norm. Encouraging this
risk taking will not only make employees more confident and autonomous, but it
will yield more output within a culture of innovation.
Lean Tip #2480 – Foster Good Communication
Open and honest communication is at the heart
of a happy and productive workplace. Start by explaining to your employees your
company’s vision, goals and plans for achieving them. Focus especially on clear
communication in times of change or uncertainty.
“Meeting regularly with employees face to face
is very important in smaller companies,” she says.
In larger companies, you can also share written
information, such as a printed or electronic company newsletter. You can
include employees’ contributions, staff success stories, company news and
business performance metrics.
Lean Tip #2481 – Choose KPIs That Look Forward,
Not Back
The speedometer in your car tells you how fast
you were driving a second ago. But it doesn’t predict how fast you’ll be
driving in five minutes.
So it is with KPIs. They tell you what just
happened, but they do not forecast what is coming.
Sometimes, information about the past is
useful. But if you are looking to predict where things are headed, you should
adjust the metrics you collect to give you information that will allow you to
make an educated guess about what’s coming.
In other words, I suggest paying close
attention to the metrics you monitor, and choosing those that are leading
indicators of your performance.
Lean Tip #2482 – Don’t Let The Numbers Lull You
Into Feeling You’re In Control
The more numbers, dashboards and charts and
your disposal, the more you will feel you are in control of the situation.
That is not always the case. And in fact,
thinking you are in control can be dangerous.
Companies sometimes put a lot of effort into
creating very elaborate performance management plans based on metrics. It
really feels like they are doing all the right things. But are outcomes
actually improving because of all of this? Often the metrics being monitored
are not aligned with common objectives, and the related actions don’t actually
move the needle.
Just having numbers doesn’t guarantee results.
The numbers have to be relevant.
Lean Tip #2483 – Less is More With KPIs
The purpose of having KPIs is to drive action
that affects results. Many times we find that companies track, measure and
report on a boatload of KPIs every week, but there are only a handful that ever
cause anyone on the team to take action. This is a big waste of time for the
executives responsible for collecting and reporting the data, and can easily
cause a team to overlook the few that really do matter.
Remember that the secret to success is not in
the KPI itself. The secret to success lies in the actions you take to impact
the KPI. Don't measure everything that moves. Measure what you want to move.
Focus on actions, get value, achieve success, and maintain momentum. Once you
move into the phase of maintaining momentum, you're ready to tackle another
area and develop a few more KPIs. You can keep the original KPIs on your
dashboard for a period of time to ensure they stay on track, but eventually you
may be able to remove them. Less is more!
Lean Tip #2484 – Use Leading Indicators To
Drive Results
KPIs come in two flavors: Results Indicators
and Leading Indicators.
Results indicators report what you have
achieved. These are the usual suspects such as sales closed, products shipped
or net profit. Use results indicators to establish targets for effective annual
and quarterly plans. Begin with the end in mind by setting targets, and
developing a plan to hit the targets.
Leading indicators, on the other hand, are
predictive in nature. These measure how you are doing on the activities and
levers that will move your outcome in a positive or negative way. Identifying
and tracking leading indicators with frequency will help guide your day to day
operations and decision making, and can give you a glimpse into the future,
allowing you to make adjustments mid-stream that will positively impact your
results.
Starting at your result indicator will not get
you there. Instead, push on your leading indicators to drive towards your
results.
To find your leading indicators, ask yourself
"What results are we trying to achieve?" Once you understand what you
need to achieve, start peeling back the layers of the onion by asking more
questions to determine what actually causes that result. You may need to go
several layers deep to get to the most important leading indicator. Once you
have discovered your most important leading indicator KPI, track it frequently
(weekly or daily).
Lean Tip #2845 – Don’t Measure More Than 10
KPIs.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are powerful,
yet they come with a cost. That said, it’s critical to keep the list short and
sweet so you can invest your time and resources efficiently. I recommend you
start with measuring your number of leads, lead conversion rate, average sales,
number of transactions, and margins. The remaining 5 should be operational
measurements and tied directly to your goals.
Lean Tip #2486 – Assign Ownership For Your KPIs
Effective KPIs require two types of ownership.
The first is the ownership of the KPI in terms of its meaning and
interpretation. Someone needs to be in charge of looking at the KPI,
interpreting its meaning, monitoring how it’s changing and deciding what that
means for the business.
The other ownership refers to the data collection.
Sometimes you can automate the process but, more often than not, data
collection will require some human interaction. Perhaps certain personnel are
involved in transferring data from one database to another, or they have to
collect it manually. Again, this ownership needs to be clearly set out and
followed through.
Lean Tip #2487 – Ensure KPIs are Understood by People
Within Your Organization
It’s essential that everyone in your business
is aware of what you’re trying to achieve, and how you’re measuring progress
towards those achievements. This is especially important for those who are
charged with ownership of the KPIs, but it’s also important for people right
across the business, at any level. KPIs should form part of the decision-making
process for every employee, and everyone should be able to answer the question,
“How will what I am doing today affect our KPIs?”
You therefore need to ensure everybody
understands how the metrics you are gathering are linked to your strategic
priorities. This will increase “buy in” – how personally involved and
enthusiastic your staff feel about your priorities – and ensure that constant
review and improvement are at the heart of everything your people do. If you
simply tell everyone that they have to collect a whole heap of extra data from
now on without explaining why, you are likely to end up with a very cynical and
disengaged workforce!
Lean Tip #2488 – Find the Best Way to Communicate
Your KPIs
It’s always wise to think about how best to
communicate your KPIs so their insights are obvious, engaging and apparent to
all. So many KPIs are reported in long reports full of numbers or tables,
perhaps with a traffic light graphic to indicate urgency. This is not good
enough. There is absolutely no point hiding important insights in excessively
long reports that no one ever reads.
Really effective visualizations clearly
illustrate trends and variations in data, and engage the reader. Try to find
the right picture for your KPIs and create an explanation of the insights so
that the nuggets of wisdom extracted from the data are clear, unambiguous,
accessible and, most importantly, actionable.
Lean Tip #2489 – Review Your KPIs to Ensure They
Help Improve Performance
If a KPI isn’t useful in helping you or others
in your business make better decisions, which, in turn, will improve your
business’s performance, then it’s just noise. You therefore need to constantly
review the metrics you are measuring to make sure they are genuinely useful and
you aren’t spending hours (or asking your staff to spend hours) measuring data
simply to tick off boxes.
Lean Tip #2490 – Maintain A Healthy KPI
Balance.
You want to make sure your KPIs indicate you
are maintaining a good balance between People and Process. It is very easy to become
so narrowly focused on solving one problem that you create new problems in
other places. For example, if an efficiency measure in one area of your
business has fallen behind, you may want to develop on or two KPIs designed to
drive up productivity in this area. In doing this, you need to be aware of the
possibility that you could push too hard on improving this KPI, burning out
your people, and possibly doing permanent damage to your relationship with
employees.
On the People side, make sure you have 1-2 KPIs
to monitor the health of your relationships with:
Employees
Customers
Shareholders
On the Process side, make sure you have 1-2
KPIs to monitor productivity in:
Operations (how you make/buy/deliver)
Sales
Record keeping (how you monitor your finances)
Taking the time to make sure you've identified
the right KPIs, that you're using Leading Indicators to track your progress,
that you have clearly identified what success looks like, and that you're
taking a healthy, balanced approach to running your business can be one of the
most important exercises you and your executive team can do together. Invest
the time, commit to the process, assign ownership and improve your company's
results.
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