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Measuring Performance for Breakaway Success: ‘A’ Players Rise to the Occasion

By on March 16, 2012 in Business, Employee Engagement, Executive Excellence, Perspectives, Trust, Values

If you’ve been following this blog since the beginning of this series, you already know I believe that accountability pays dividends in increased vitality that includes vitalizing what is known as the Triple Bottom Line.  Google it and you’ll find the triple bottom line means working as an organization toward profits, people, and the planet.

Look further and you will find many companies distinguishing themselves by pursuing the triple bottom line; Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, Panera Bread, The Container Store, Whole Foods — being purposeful in a larger sense while pursuing self-interest.  The proof of effectiveness is in the financial, social, and environmental effects and is often associated with the monikers “sustainable” organization, or corporate citizenship, or conscious capitalism.  For more examples,  http://www.forbes.com/impact-30/lander.html.

Besides being the conscious thing to do, the triple bottom line has appeal for ‘A’ players — people who want to work for a purpose greater than themselves, who will work harder for the privilege of making a difference.

Breakaway Success is accomplishment beyond measure.  And yes, to get there, measure, measure, measure!  But only measure what is meaningful.

What is meaningful?  Most accountants measure what has already passed, and that has to be measured — sales, profits, ROI, G&A, etc.  Nothing new here and not necessarily meaningful to top performers, particularly younger workers who decide where to work based on the green/social capital of the organization.

And yes, financials are important. The Harvard Business Review, January 2010 issue’s presentation of The Best-Performing CEOs in the World said their objective was to present a long-term measure to assess CEOs and to inform CEO searches and succession planning, looking at stock returns, the fundamental scorecard for CEOs of public companies.  They looked at three measures:  country-adjusted return, industry-adjusted return and change in market capitalization during their tenure.

The following are words and phrases emanating from the 2011 CEO Summit on Conscious Capitalism. http://vimeo.com/33738729. Well-being of the people, the world.  Value for stakeholders.  I win, you win, the world wins.  Businesses operating from higher ideals that animate business. Profit is the byproduct, and purpose underlies that.  If you make a difference, often the money will take care of itself.

Paradoxically, NOT focusing wholly on profit will provide more profitability because the focus is on win-win.

How is your organization measuring its success?  I am eager to hear your stories.

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Employee Engagement — Structures that Inspire ‘A’ Teams

By on March 9, 2012 in Business, Employee Engagement, Perspectives, strategy, Trust, Uncategorized, Values

I have said previously that ‘A’ Players like to be measured because they want to know when they have met or exceeded expectations, their own and yours.

Different teams require different structures, so for example sales teams require CRM.  That should be obvious, but for some organization it isn’t.  They probably aren’t reading this blog, because they have fallen behind in their technology savvy.

Today there is no excuse for not capturing sales data.  If you experience resistance from your sales management or a sales team member, you may be getting feedback from someone who doesn’t want to be measured, which suggests that person isn’t an ‘A’ player.  Look more deeply.

Senior executive teams need meetings with one another on a regular basis, and I do not mean meetings that get put off when there’s an emergency.  Consider that there are emergencies because you aren’t strategically thinking together regularly.

‘A’ teams need a leader who challenges them to think their best thoughts, be on their best behavior as a leader.  Challenging conversations are a structure.  They need report cards, theirs from you and theirs to you the CEO/President/Founder/Grand Poo-Bah of any title.  They need off-sites for strategic thinking and planning.  Those are structures.

What else do they need as a structure?  Executives need to be able to count on having conversations that matter deeply, whether they ask for them or not, in part because they need to learn how to hold those conversations with those who report to them.  I recently was asked to help a CEO hire a senior executive.  We used the Harrison Assessment to profile the candidate against the expectations of the position.  His results scared the potential employee off.  The CEO’s executive coach said to me, “Probably a good thing.  If the candidate doesn’t want to delve more transparently into himself then he won’t be a good fit for this team.”

If you need support for generating conversations that matter, on this website you can order senior executive team conversation starters.   And if you want to keep and inspire ‘A’ teams with structures, you will look beyond the obvious ones, which you know with your eyes closed.

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Employee Engagement: Who Has What at Stake?

By on February 17, 2012 in Business, Employee Engagement, Perspectives, Trust, Values

What is Employee Engagement?   Dave Logan, co-author of one of my leadership favorite books, Tribal Leadership, recently told me the term employee engagement is passé, the desirable state — and the state enjoyed at poster companies such as Zappos — is employee passion.  Well, he probably used a different term that I interpreted as employee passion.

Here’s what I see.  Employee engagement is employees working in an organization in a way that an owner would work, with something at stake in the future success of the organization and a sense of worth that comes from contributing to something greater than their own self-interest.

So when managing the philosophy of human resources in your organization, what are the principles that would garner either engagement or optimally passion for people doing their job?

We are currently putting in new flooring, and two guys are downstairs as I write this blog chatting away in another language as they set the tiles that we will live with for many years to come.  Are they artisans designing my future environment, attending to whether the tiles look good in that configuration?  Or are they talking about their evening, a good steak, their children and just making a dollar?

If you are working from the triple bottom line — profits, people, and planet — your employees’ attitudes matter.  If you want employees to be responsible for the bottom line then they have to have a stake in the results the company produces, and that does not mean your job is to make them HAPPY.  Rick Tate of Impact Achievement Group recently wrote an article pointing out that it is productive employees who have great morale, yet many performance reviews reflect a belief that great morale leads to productivity.   Happy is a result of productivity, not an access to it.

You are responsible for their experience of productivity in many ways, one of them is what you measure.  “A” players like to be measured, and “A” teams like to be measured.  If you are measuring what matters they know it, you know it, and you will have engaged employees.

How do you measure employee engagement (or better yet, passion)?  I welcome your stories!

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