Assessing progress is important in order to measure the investment in resources you’ve made. You are not going to be aware of misappropriation of your resources if you never stop to measure your performance in your set key result areas.
Teams and organizations that never stop to take stock of every resource and energy investment miss out on hidden opportunity that could result from such activity.
Your team must be able to justify their endeavors; without any forms of measurement that is not possible. You cannot better something that is never measured.
This gives rise to the tension: what you measure vs. what is important.
In a production environment, enterprises can measure their performance against what they produce and overlook measuring other aspect to organizational life that can have a positive impact on their end products. Other areas to consider could be how team members relate to each other.
It could be assessing the environment they work in. Because it is possible to measure things that may not be relevant, it is worthwhile to view your enterprise as one system with sub systems in it. It is said it is the small foxes that spoil the vine. You could be missing out on small tweaks that can make big differences.
You cannot make something better if you don’t measure it.
Besides reviewing what you measure as an organization, those that drive change, the leaders, the heretics, need to do the same.
Leaders that never pause to assess their growth as leaders miss out on having a solid foundation for maturing in their leadership.
Unmeasured activity is a thief of innovation, opportunity & a possible incubator of resource abuse.
For a leader, reflection is the primary step for assessing growth. Stop and think: What challenges have you dealt with that you have dealt with before? Was your response any different? A better response can be an indicator of growth. This approach is not all you can look at but is a great start.
What do you consider key in justifying endeavors? Other thoughts?
image by aussiegall | (cc)