If You Can’t Read The Scoreboard…

Years ago, I heard a guy from Canada speak about what it would be like to watch a sports event with no scoreboard present. He talked about how confusing it would be for the coaches and players as they took the field and realized that they couldn’t see who was winning by looking to either end of the field. When one of the coaches approached the ref to ask about it, the ref simply shrugged him off and told him he would find out who won at the end of the game.

My thought was about what the half-time speech would be. Would both head coaches yell at their players? Would they simply remain quiet? What would their strategy be? I even wondered if the players would try to build each other up, saying that as long as they did their best, it would all be fine.

This is the exact experience that most businesses have. They go into their days, weeks, and months simply hoping things will turn out fine but not have a clear picture of the score. They don’t know if their marketing is working, but they do it because that’s what people do. They don’t know if their leadership is working because they don’t measure the response they are getting from their people. They just do their best and hope it all works out.

There are three metrics that help any business understand what the score is for their company. The first is culture. You measure culture by looking at the engagement and performance of your people. If you have an engaged workforce that is accomplishing measurable objectives, you have a good culture. The second is the measurable outcomes of the team and the individuals. When mapping out performance measures, “had a good attitude” sounds great but produces little. The metrics need to be tied to the job, the person, and the overall mission of the organization. We have a tendency to praise effort too much and outcomes too little in ourselves and our teams. The third metric is strategic growth. Strategic growth maintains a net profit standard in the products and services provided. Gross revenue shows how many people are buying, but net profit shows how intelligent it was to sell what they bought.

When you measure culture, performance, and profit, you know the score of your organization. I would challenge you to step back from your business and look at these three measures. If they are off, then focus on getting them on track in the order presented. Culture will determine employee performance. Employee performance will determine outcomes. Outcomes will determine profit.