Article 10: Measurement
By Dr. Jim Beaubien

Measurement is an integral part of strategic leadership. Effective measurement allows you to assess your organization’s progress, make ongoing adjustments and set future direction. It allows you to do more of what’s working and less of what’s not working. Without an effective measurement system, your attempts to guide your business will amount to little more than guessing.

Here are some quick tips to improve measurement in your organization:

• Make sure your measurement processes are strategy driven. Strategy sets the over all direction focuses your efforts on what’s important. An effective measurement lets you assess how well you are performing in the areas you’ve defined as important. The key here is to identify your strategic indicators at the same time as you set your strategy. There should be a direct line of sight between what you intend to do strategically and your measurement system.
• Keep your measurement process as simple as possible. Focus on measuring the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reasons. While complicated measurement systems may look impressive, they usually add little value.
• Incorporate both leading and lagging indicators into your measurement system. Lagging indicators describe where you’ve been while leading indicators give you information about what lies ahead so you can adjust your course and stay on track. You need to know where the shoals are before you sail into them, not after you’ve beached.
• Develop a customized suite of measurements to provide people with the job specific information they need to deliver the results you expect of them. With out these customized measures, it is not possible to hold people accountable.

Make measurement is an integral part of your strategic leadership tool kit. It’s the key to eliminating guesswork and increasing control.