I could not help but jump in on this.
Rohit Talwar expressed some concern about the obsession we have with
measures.
> I concur with your concerns with the obsession over measurement and the
> confusion over measurement and management.
>
>My observation is that focusing on the measures is the easy way out - how
>many organisations engineer good staff morale survey results in full
>knowlegde that reality is very different? All too often we get measure
>serving bahaviours. the measures should be telling us how we are
>performing against the requirements of key organisational stakeholders.
>However, as you suggest, in most organisations measures fall
>siginficantly short in assessing the two key drivers of performance -
>employee motivation and the customer experience.
This is a very valid indictment of the measures we use, but not of
measuring. "Engineering good staff morale survey results" is a misuse of
measures. A compny that goes to that level of duplicity will manage to
lie about reality even without measures. Let's not mix up the weaknesses
of measures with the weaknesses of people. This is a weakness of people
situation.
> I find the employee measurement question particularly amusing. I have a
>sense that what makes organisations truly perform is the abiity to
>inspire and harness the passion, enthusiasm, commitment and energy of
>their people in order to engage them. These factors are equally critcal
>to the success of personal, social and family relationships - yet how
>many of us attempt to measure the enthusiasm of our children or the
>passion of our partner - just beacuse we don't measure it does not mean
>that we do not think it is important.
He is correct. And, we can measure people's inspiration, commitment,
passion, and enthusiasm. Companies do this. We do this. And the
information -- feedback -- is very insightful.
>I fear that what happens is that we create surrogate measures and then we
>get the measure serving behaviour - rather than behaviour that serves the
>goal of which the measure is meant to be an indicator. As a result the
>measure and associated targets become the goal. For example, I have seen
>people use the no. of sickness days and no. of improvement ideas
>generated as measures of commitment. Neither is in any way an assessment
>of commitment but what happens in practice is that the pressure is
>exerted from on high to improve perfromance aganist the measures rather
>than to engender greater commitment.
Try a real, truly blind, questionnaire. You'll be blown away at what
people will tell you, and you will be humbled. You may be angry, but you
will certainly be enlightened about what people really think.
>It is difficult to see how we can get a true shift in organisational
>focus until we move away from considering financial returns to the
>shareholder as the primary goal of the organisation. Fortunately, there
>are those who are offering an alternative perspective. A number of firms
>(e.g. Traidcraft, Body Shop) are now doing 'social audits' - annual
>reports assessing their contribution to soceity. The RSA Tomorrows'
>Company study in the UK encouraged business to consider a broader set of
>stakeholders including customers, employees, suppliers and the community.
>Similarly Robert Waterman in the Frontiers of Excellence suggested that
>organisations should take a broader view of wealth creation to encompass
>performance in addrssing social, education, health etc. problems and
>challenges.
Yes, and they are measuring. That is what a social audit is.
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc 76234,3636@compuserve.com
1. Challenge the process. 2. Inspire a shared vision. 3. Enable others to act. 4. Model the way. 5. Encourage the heart.
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>